A Wood Between the Worlds
by Odeveca
Summary: REWRITTEN. A tale of Tamlin's little sister and and the spymaster of the Night Court. On opposite ends of Prythian, Azriel and Kianna fight to keep their friendship strong and the people they love safe from forces that stretch farther and older than the Kingdom of Hybern. (OC x Azriel.) *** All Cannon Couples. *See My Account Profile for more news.
1. Blood For Blood

_**Thank you for clicking on this! Love you guys, love this community, and I hope you enjoy :)**_

 **Complete Summary: A tale of Tamlin's little sister and and a shadowsinger born an Illyrian bastard. On opposite ends of Prythian, they fight to keep their friendship strong and their people safe from forces that stretch farther and older than the Kingdom of Hybern. **

**In later years, Kianna still keeps her promise to stay in the Spring Court, but when Amarantha's curse might finally be broken by a human girl, Kianna travels Under the Mountain to incite the High Lords to rebel for a free Prythian. In the midst of War with Hybern, Kia finds her Illyrian mate surrounded by politics, spying, and too many meddling shadows.  
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 **A Wood Between the Worlds  
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 _ **By Odeveca**_

 **Chapter 1: Blood For Blood**

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 **AZRIEL**

There were no words for it.

No words that could soften what the Illyrian scouts found floating down the river to the camps. _Two bloody boxes…_ filled with two decapitated heads.

After he had gotten over the shock, Azriel felt as if some demon had carved him into a coffin. It had awakened his protectors, swirling dark shadows rose clearer now, whispering warnings of bad blood to come, and they set him on _an edge_ he had not felt in years.

The bad memory bubbled to the surface, like air escaping from a putrid swamp.

 _"Get in there you bastard." The clipped Illyrian female had once snarled in his rounded ear. Her dress of fine stock slapped around her bare calves as they descended down into his father's cellar, and the silver adorning her delicate wrists gave his skin bruises as she shoved him into that foul darkness that was not his own. As if getting beaten by his half-brothers was not a punishment enough now he had to be exiled here.  
_

 _"No please." Azriel's small fingers had pleaded against her hostile ones to stop dragging him by his scalp. "I don't like the dark please." She responded by pulling fistfuls of hairs, making his head bleed again as she gets him into the cell of nightmares, throwing him on the stone ground. "Please! I will be good. I won't fight."_

 _"Get in there," his stepmother's hateful lips said again as she shuts the door, leaving him in darkness. Only her voice left, "Bastard boy!"_

 _"No! Don't leave me no!" Azriel screamed for his mother from the inside of that dark cell, pounding the iron-clad door, and scratching until his fingernails came off. He screamed for her to get him out, take him away. When she didn't come for him, he called for the servants that fed and played with him, and then when he grew truly desperate, swallowing his pride, he called for his half-brothers. When his voice became hoarse for some reason he began calling for his father._

 _No one came for him. Each week he was imprisoned in that cell, with only one hour of reprieve with his mother._

 _They had done that to him, and not one of them had spoken up against his evil stepmother.  
_

The Illyrian warrior in him demanded he stop letting it get to him, and so Azriel shoved the painful memory deep inside.

Rhysand needed him, especially today.

The dark mood was imprinted when the remainder of the Night Court had winnowed back to the House of Wind. The snobbish Fae nobles added to the whispers of the tragedy that befell the High Lord's wife and child, and of the inevitable blood feud to come.

His shadows whispered to him.

 _"They're dead. Mother and daughter both."_

 _"What will the High Lord do?"_

 _"Will we go to War?"_

 _"Oh there will be War, depends if Hybern will be apart of it is the question I am asking."_

 _"Oh Cauldron's fuck, this is going to be a bloodbath."_

Azriel could feel the anxious sweat weeping from his tattooed arms into his Illyrian leather at the mention of the bloodbath. The tension in the air reminded him of the Blood Rite. For those Fae that did not know Illyrian's tradition, the Blood Rite is when an Illyrian boy is to become a true warrior. To participate his wings are bound and magic leeched from him as the gathered are let lose in the wilds of the caves.

Azriel remembered the Blood Rite keenly, especially the first nights alone thinking of what troubles Cassian and Rhysand must be finding or cooking up as they were dropped on opposite sides of the mountain. Beast and up and coming war-lords' sons seemed to be around every corner, waiting to prove their worth, hunting the other contenders for a chance to join the Illyrian horde of warriors made.

For the Illyrian warrior in him, it seemed impossible to stay so still after learning about the murders, _so silent_ , and _not_ to leap at every uncanny move.

He had been trained to be ready for things like this.

Azriel would spring at any command Rhysand gave him. He had been trained for things like this, but not for the emotional shit-storm it would render him to. The emotional anguish of losing loved ones seemed to rack through his once so composed mind, that it made every wasted minute ruminating the right counter-blow downright agony.

Azriel was not the only one.

His Illyrian brother Cassian was not doing much better. His brother's once so bright face darkened into two ghoulish black eyes staring off into nothing, his wings drooped far too close to the ground, something their Illyrian pride forbid them to do, but it seemed Cass didn't care at the moment. Instead, his focus was on a scarred knuckle tapping one of the red Siphons on the back of his dominant hand. If he kept that tapping up Azriel would have to make him stop.

Thank goodness Mor came.

"Rhys, oh Rhys," Mor had come as soon as she heard of their return, a vision of gold and silver hooped earrings, and the heartbroken tears in her eyes made Azriel want to wrap his arms around her and make sure such tears were given the proper consideration. "I am so sorry"-

"Don't touch me." Rhys gritted out, hands exasperated, before she could console him, "I can't- control myself." He had taken one of the couch seats facing off at the sunset that plunged off the edge of Night, the House of Wind was filled with mist and twilight this windy night, and Rhysand returned to the same stony statue, holding back his overwhelming despair.

"Fair enough," she gave him back his space. "But to be clear," she said in that Mor tone of hers. "I am not going anywhere," said the stubborn Morrigan that Azriel and his brothers knew so well. Despite her presence, Rhys' Illyrian brothers, Cassian and Azriel pretended to be still looking on at the last rays of sun, as if they were _not_ waiting for the inevitable counter-attack against the Spring Court.

He was not sure what his brothers wanted, but Azriel wanted this fight.

Selene and Nyx had been their family, _still family_ , they had been apart of their daily lives, a painful empty space was left in their place, and Azriel was sure this is how it would feel if were ever to loose his brothers... but that was too painful to even imagine, it was like losing both his arms. How could he live like that? How could anyone live like that?

Rhys met his eyes in understanding, and then shut his own when the emotion became too great.

 _Poor Rhys_ , and his father. Selene and Nyx had been far too kind for this savage game between Hybern and Prythian, Fae and human, and wholly unprepared for the attack on their lives. Azriel pushed away the shame of not discovering this danger, and reminded himself that his guilt was nothing compared to what Rhysand or his father must be feeling in placing their trust in the wrong places.

It was obvious what would happen now, War, bloodshed between Courts, and daggers in the night. Azriel's shadows whispered hot threats _.._.

 _'Blood for blood. Get them now, strike into their necks, kill, kill them Azriel…'_

 **No.**

 **Be Calm.**

Azriel forbade that part of the shadows from ever taking control of him.

Still, they had their uses, telling him the cold tragedy of Selene and Nyx as it _had_ occurred.

The shadows whispered of Tamlin, his brothers, and father's descending upon Selene and Nyx. Of spilling their guts upon finding them, of slicing the wings from their shoulders, and at last cutting their heads like gifts for his High Lord.

Those were things Azriel could never say.

They also told him of when High Lord and Rhysand had considered the boxes, at last opening them, their dark High Fae power swelled at the terrible cruelty, Rhys had fallen to his knees, too far gone to reason with his father, and that same Father all but destroyed everyone and everything in a mile's radius (or so Azriel had also heard from his spies that had been left alive).

 _"I'm sorry Rhys," Azriel had first told him. "I hold myself accountable-"_

 _"Don't even." Rhys spoke up for him when they returned, and before his father had shut himself away in his study._

 _He had never seen Rhysand look so defeated."I still feel responsible."  
_

 _Rhys would not hear it, grasping his shoulder in a vice grip. "You couldn't have known Az."_

After that guilt-ridden moment, Azriel felt compelled to be here for Rhysand in whatever way he could.

Even if Rhysand was inconsolable.

"Rhys what can we do? How can we fix this?" Cassian spoke up for them all, their eyes widening as Rhys' knuckles turned bone white. "What should we do about your father? He can't hide away from this?"

Azriel bit his lip. This was not the time to question the High Lord's methods. Illyrian warriors had been butchered and clipped of their wings for lesser insults. Thankfully Rhys was not his father. Their brother cleared his throat, "he's too unstable right now. I don't want you guys near him-"

"He wouldn't hurt us," Morrigan shook her head, as if she knew brutality only ran in some High Fae, and not the male that had once cuddled on the couch with Selene as she made dresses for Morrigan and Rhys' future bride. "He wouldn't do that Rhys, he's-"

"He lost my mother," Rhys told her, "he's too lost to think. I don't want to risk him hurting any of you"- preying on her once so strong confidence of course Rhysand won the argument.

Azriel subtly agreed with a nod of his head. He wouldn't want Mor to get in the middle of a deathblow meant for Tamlin and his filthy Hybern loving family.

Despite what they knew or what they could sense.

Azriel knew Rhysand's father _demanded blood._ Azriel's whispering shadows, that coiled liked grasping fingers around his shoulders, reacted defensively to the High Lord's dark waves of shadow that moved through stone and wood to reach their room. It was like a bomb was going to go off, and Azriel was the only one that knew it was _ticking._

Azriel racked his fingers on Truth-Teller to calm himself, and then shut his eyes when his seven cobalt Siphons began thrumming. He knew none could reason with a male after the death of his mate and daughter, who would dare to, and an energy like that would have to be unleashed one way or another.

He just hoped his friends would not suffer when it did.

"Help us." Azriel muttered to whatever unseen power watched their lives. _To the Cauldron._ To a Prythian that had once been whole. "Please."

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 _ **Previously called. Like Calls To Like or more recently For the Beast In Our Bones. The name pays homage to C.S. Lewis wonderful world of the Chronicles of Narnia, and I will have many more hints at other Fae and fairie lore based novels, kudos if you can catch some :)  
**_

 _ **So...what do you think?**_

 _ **Please tell me what you think of this revised storyline, and thank you for clicking on this story!**_

 **A/N: I own nothing (this serves for the entire fanfic).  
This was written because ACOTAR is a sandbox I couldn't help but want to play in.  
Love to hear what you guys think of my OC (KIANNA) x Azriel. OC POV. Rated T could go to M in future chapters for mature themes: sex, violence, profanity.  
This first chapter starts way before the novels, then it will pick up just a bit before A Court of Thorns and Roses and will go beyond A Court of Wings and Ruin, and the sequel A Court of Frost and Starlight.  
Please enjoy :)**


	2. The Spring Court

**Chapter 2: The Spring Court**

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 **KIANNA**

The swift wind came rushing through the swaying canopy of the evergreen forest, leaking warm butterscotch light through the falling of the new leaves, and illuminating the open field that led to a vast and painfully elegant Manor beyond.

The Manor house of the Spring Court was built for opulence, from a visitor's eye it had many pillars of alabaster, balconies swallowed by vine and sweet produce, and below it lay cobbled patios of gardens, loading spaces for the wagons that exported goods, and quick-footed slaves that filled them, seemed to be rushed under the unrelenting sun's eye and the Fae Masters.

Beyond the Manor, the green landscape was a mixture of tumbling and rolling hills, fields of spring flowers, only disturbed by the sunburnt backs and straw hats of human slaves that labored in the sun to feed and serve their High Fae Masters. It seemed their laborious lives went unceasing as they plucked from the ever-plentiful earth, the years came and went when another younger and stronger human would take their place of labor, and so went the eternal dance of Spring.

From one of the erected balconies of the Manor, Kianna could move her toy kelpie horse along the ledge that she could now reach.

"Kelpie swim, swim, swim mommie!"

Her mother's delicately arched ears, and naturally bronze long-limbed skin was only a few steps away minding her daughter for the few hours the servants needed to have their own break, "that's right little one," she said while rubbing her growing belly that brushed against the fabric of her silk dress.

"You like swimming, don't you my little kelpie. You swim better than I do now." She reminded her daughter, while using the back of hand to shield her face from the sun rays. Below the hand to her temple, bright emerald eyes narrowed, _troubled._ "How would you like to go the lake later on today?"

"Yes! Yes please!"

"We will." Her mother's attentions were stolen once more in her distractions of surveying the fields of human slaves.

As the smaller version of her mother, Kianna played a bit louder to get her attention.

It worked. "What game are you playing my little one?" Her mother threaded her manicured fingers through her daughter's golden head of tumbling curls, and then playfully outlined her long-pointed ear, and Kianna moved away giggling at the tingling feeling it shot through her.

"The Kelpie is swimming mommy, play with me, play!" Her own small bronze hand moved the toy in a swimming motion, showing her mother how she imagined a kelpie would play.

"It is!" She leaned down, moaning a bit as she held her very pregnant belly to squat, but still managing to act as if Kianna was the center of her world, "would you like to go for that swim then?"

It had become hot after the hour they had stood here, appraising their wealth in flesh and production of food at work, and a soothing swim in the lake's cool and steady waters sounded very nice to the _little faeling_ , relaxing even, and she nodded in delight when her mother's soft hand smoothed her baby hairs.

"Then we shall go my little one, would you like me to get Willow"-

"No," Kianna would rather not share her mother, keep her and the baby away from any humans, even if they were nice ones like Willow, but sentries would come as they always did, to watch over their well-being as they were sworn and bound to do. Just as they were bound to keep things in order as the High Lord was away, "I like to be with just us, just the two of us- "

"Cauldron's fuck! Get the hell up!" An angry snarl broke the revelry of their shared peace.

All thoughts of swimming left when a human drenched in sweat and exhaustion tripped and lost her grip on the basket full of produce, scraping her malnourished bony knees against stone, and dropping perfectly good produce she had been carrying on her head. "Pick it up!"

The slave-girl made no move to pick them up.

Instead her dark big eyes dared to look up at the gleaming armor and fine arches of the Fae male that addressed her so, his hand tapping against the half-arm sword at his waist, and the insignia of the Spring Court on his chest, a pale cream five-petaled flower, with a backdrop of deep green and thorns encircling around the circular edge. The symbol was imprinted on every crevice of the Manor, and Kianna knew the expectations that came with it.

"Pick them up." The sentinel snarled at the human woman.

She dared further by narrowing her eyes at him. Ignoring how the now imperfect oranges and apples rolled ominously across the flagstone courtyard, the silence stretching, and both Kianna's and her mother's Fae eyes becoming fixed on the High Fae sentry that picked up a whip from one of the tables, the one they used on the horses, and without hesitation descended it on a human head.

It coiled into the air before landing a blow that was too quick and powerful for mere human eyes to detect. Too fast for one of their kind to even get away. An angry red welt was left on the human's face, on her outstretched arm, she began howling in pain, refusing to go on with her business, and nursing the stinging wound as any creature would naturally do.

"Silence! Silence you filthy human!" The whipped slave wailed louder despite the sentries' command.

Kianna hid in her mother's skirts, because this was the Spring Court, and even Kianna knew that disobedience was never left unanswered.

"How dare you disobey!" Another whip came down once more over her wailing head, but her cries did not end, ringing through the halls of the Manor, bringing more than a few eyes on the scene, and she continued to cry even when one of her companions came to pick her up, leading her safely away from the hateful glares of the High Fae sentry.

"Back to work!" Kianna watched as the slaves did as they bid, another slave child coming up to wipe up the blood of what the wailing girl had left behind. The slave boy looked up, his brown eyes connecting with Kianna's, and she turned away before he could see how terrified she was.

"It's alright to be afraid Kianna," her mother rubbed her back as they walked away from the balcony. "The hand of power is not an easy one to bear, they are but humans," her mother made a noise that usually meant she had no power to change it. "They will not have to suffer for long." '

 _They will not suffer for long._

 _Suffering._

For some reason Kianna felt like she knew nothing of the word. _"Why do they suffer Mama?"_

"Because they must, all of the Cauldron's creatures must suffer in our own way Kianna," her mother's once so reasonable words struck her as silly.

Kianna could not seem to agree, not when people were beaten so savagely that it made her skin crawl.

She liked to think that one day the humans could be put to rest, that they could return to their own lives and the Fae theirs.

That lovely dream broke when her mother continued in a tone too sweet for the words she spoke, "such is the way of their short lives Kianna. Our immortal dominion and protection is the only natural solution to their fragile lives. We are saving them from their own destruction and brutish ways."

"Hm." Kianna tried to understand, but fell short.

Unlike her older brothers that understood, trusted the order of things, she felt just as fragile as the humans.

That fragility frightened her, frightened that her own kind would see it in her, call her out, or one of the humans would act upon it as vengeance for the pain they suffered under her guilty eyes.

"We should speak to your father about beating slaves where you can see. You are too young for such things. By my mother's grave, at ten summers I was still in the nursery, in Vallahan girls are kept inside. Where is your father to deal with these things? He should be here by now," she muttered to herself, still looking out into the fields, more worried about her Lord and husband, and possibly when Kianna's equally wrathful father would return to cause an even bigger stir among the sad and beaten slaves.

"I don't want him to come home," Kianna grieved whatever peace they had found in the absence of crude words and crueler hands.

"I don't want to hear you say that Kianna." Her mother heard her, "you'll hurt your father's feelings." Kianna was very sure her father had no feelings and her punishment for saying so was to go back to the dank and dusty nursery of reading books and playing with dolls.

After Kianna sat in front of her dolls, too sad to do anything with them.

Her mother said it so sweetly it surprised her, "don't be upset my little one, I will see what I can do for that slave."

"Will you free her?" Kianna said hopefully.

"I will see what I can do," her mother chuckled as if she found her request adorably cute, "see if one of our healers can see if she needs anything," her mother said, so alike to a Fae Queen of Old in the stories Willow read for her to get to sleep, that if Kianna had not known she would have guessed her mother was not upset in the least bit. But Kianna could see it.

It worried her mother that her daughter fussed over the humans. She worried, and Kianna knew now would be the only time to really get her mother to understand. Her mother opened the conversation once more. "Would you like to go for a swim Kianna before your Father and brothers return home?"

Kianna little throat became parched, she no longer felt like going anywhere, more interested in what happened to the slaves when she wasn't watching.

"I'd like to heal the slave-girl."

"No Kianna," her mother gave a low growl, she was going to get it now. "I already told you, that is not our place, I will try to have a healer see her-"

"Why can't we be good people to them?" Kianna stood, throwing her doll against the wall, it's face smashing. "No!"

Kianna had not meant to do that, and she tried to pick up the pieces with Willow, but there were too many, too many sharp ones, and it made her hands bleed red. Willow plucked the glass from her hands, and still Kianna felt like no one was listening. "I don't want to be mean to the humans anymore Mama! Listen!" She yelled at her mother that was rubbing her head.

"Hush little Lady." Her mother's slave (Willow) turned nanny thought it appropriate to intervene, pulling down Kianna's raised arms,"little Lady listen to your Mother please. You must stop this."

Kianna howled and struggled against her, "don't you want to leave! Aren't you done with all this fighting," Kianna felt like this was more than a tantrum, for once she felt assured after sorrowful and _suffering_ look Willow had showed her when they were alone, "get out while you still can! I know you want to! I can see it in your eyes-"

"Little Lady stop please!" Willow's eyes widened in horror and she shook Kianna to get her to stop, "please before anyone hears."

Her mothers' smile soured to something frightful as she back-handed Willow.

That made Kianna stop. It made her regret ever saying a word.

"How dare you touch my daughter!" Her mother took Kianna's hand away from Willow, bringing her to her side, and turning on Willow that held her strawberry red cheek, three scratches from her mother's nails made for her blood to smear on her quivering hand.

"Don't ever touch her like that. If I see you shake her again, you will lose your livelihood."

Willow wiped the blood from her lip. Her fingers shaking. "Yes my Lady."

That was all that needed to be said.

Kianna's own tears fell as she was being led away, and yet she couldn't help but notice how both Fae and human bled the same.

 _How strange._

That despite what she had been taught, she felt more closer to Willow than she had ever been to her mother.


	3. Hidden Rage

**Chapter 3: Hidden Rage**

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 **AZRIEL**

The following night was worse.

The impatience for the fight was like an arrow meeting its' mark only to twist itself deeper into bone and muscle, to let hours pass without seeking attention to it, and for infection to set and spread at it's own pleasure.

It was no surprise when Rhysand's father roared through the walls, rattling the House of Wind. "I'll kill them! I will kill every fucken one of them! I don't care anymore!"

Cassian rumbled. "He's getting worse Rhys."

"I know." Rhys rubbed the dark bags under his eyes. No one had taken rest, not a single wink to stop this nightmare, all of them statutes, _waiting._

"Maybe we should speak to him." Mor piped up.

The look Rhys gave Mor brought a smile to Azriel's mouth. The brief moment didn't last long.

In the room next to theirs, something heavy was thrown at the wall. A piece of wood splintered through the plaster and wood, and Mor and Cassian flinched at the power behind it.

Unlike his friends, Azriel had been expecting it, wanting for his High Lord to call out for the war-bands to assemble.

"You alright Az," Rhys noticed something.

"Yes." The shadowsinger only moved to the other wall, falling back into the shadows once more.

For once it killed Azriel to be so detached from it all.

"He'll destroy half of Velaris if he could," Cassian said bringing the cup of water to his mouth, no ounce of liquor on his breath, not wasting a reason for Rhys not to make use of him, but any humor left in Cassian was gone. It seemed as if the dark shadows of Night pressed on all their sides, the wind's whistle seemed less inviting than most nights, and that only made Azriel more somber.

"DON'T FUCKEN TELL ME TO STOP! I'LL STOP WHEN I'M DEAD!" The very mountain shook with the scream through the Night. At least that voice kept Azriel awake.

That ancient High Lord's power scared most. Especially those court members whom had the most to lose in this fallout.

"You must control yourself my Lord!" Lord Keir tried to control Rhysand's father once more by raising his voice, he had been called from the Hewn City by some concerned court members. "The Night Court looks to you for leadership in this trying time"-

Azriel had wondered if it was wise to have Mor's abusive and horribly demented father try to tame the _Dark Beast_ that had once unleashed devastation on rebellious Illyrian warbands and Hybern generals alike _._

"FUCK YOU KEIR!" Rhysand's father roared at the Darkbringer to get out. Azriel got some satisfaction from hearing his usually composed High Lord lash out at one of the males that would be better off dead. "HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD OR SHOULDN'T DO!"

"I didn't mean it my Lord."

"YOU DID YOU FUCKER!" Something else crashed and Azriel hoped it was Keir himself.

He counted his blessings when Keir spoke up again, tempting his death. "But my Lord we must plan the funeral rites, we can still bury their heads, give them the proper send-off as tradition commands,"- that was not the right thing to say.

Azriel bit back a laugh when he heard and saw Keir Darkbringer be thrown out from the room. From his place at the back door, Azriel did nothing to hide the triumphant smirk when a slash ran red across his cheek when he stormed away from the High Lord's study, giving him a sneer in return.

"I'm finished here!" Kier called off from down the hallway where more nobles awaited guidance. "He's gone mad, don't even try to get him back!"

That was the last they heard of Keir, or the court sympathizers that had once spit on this very ground when their High Lord married an Illyrian female of such low birth. "I cannot stay in this foul place!" Some went with him the Hewn City, to plot and gossip their petty little bets of which High Lord would survive the fallout. Azriel didn't need to take bets to know how this tale would end. The Spring Court would be on fire this time morning.

 _There will be more to follow Keir_ , _watch him_ , the shadows whispered.

"Good riddance." Mor had said for them both, taking a seat next to Rhysand, and rubbing his back a very similar way to the way Rhysand's mother had done since they were eight. Azriel raised an eyebrow to see Rhys not push her off, too lost in his own personal hell.

After an hour of a boiling insanity, tempting them for answers or perhaps giving an answer in the form of revenge, their High Lord's thrashing and blood curses went uncomfortably quiet.

Mor's whispers became louder, filling the silence, "we must negotiate some justice Rhysand."

Rhys muttered under his breath, " _Justice_? Justice for whom Mor?"

"This is your opportunity to be a leader," she said in that tone she used to compel them to listen. "This is your chance to make sure no more needless death need happen. You can tell your father, please Rhys, he'll listen to you," she said, smoothing Rhysand's hair, trying to regain the friend that had once laughed and smiled at the thought of partying the night clubs of Velaris,and had raced for patrolling the skies with his brothers.

 _That Rhysand,_ was not this pale ghost that regarded the once blood-soaked wooden boxes before them. The same boxes that had dried after a day sitting sadly on the table, spelled to stop decay, but it did not make the look of them any better.

"Mor is right Rhys," it was Cassian that shut the boxes closed, for once covering Selene and Nyx's faces forever frozen in fear, his own knuckles as tight as Rhysand's clenched fists, but for once his words were calm and reasonable, "your mother would not have wanted you to kill like they do, to turn into the beast they want"-

"You don't know that." Rhysand gritted through his teeth, Mor's hand stilling in his raven hair, frightened as he snarled at Cassian's darkening features, "we can't know. If I hadn't trusted that bastard," Tamlin, "they would still be here, if I had been there to keep my sister and mother safe, none of this would have happened"-

"No Rhys." Mor was back to consoling, a bit too forcibly now, Azriel could see how her lips tightened, "this was not your fault. None of this is your fault," she beat that into him, but then that is when the tears came. Azriel had only seen Rhys cry once.

That had been thirty years ago, his father had struck and killed an Illyrian soldier and that was the last time Rhys had shed a tear. Seeing him fall apart after so many years, it sobered Azriel to the truth.

"I will help you Rhys," Azriel made it very clear, their deeply troubled eyes of now motherless children looking up to him. "I will do whatever you ask of me."

He had never seen Rhys so lost, and so it was his place to set him on the right path.

Rhysand could feel the unsaid words the shadowsinger was inching towards. "What should that be Azriel? What could make this right?" There was no sarcasm in him left, none of that dark humor his mother would pull his ear for, "none of it can get them back, I would do anything, be anything-" he shook his head as if he was trying to get the water out of his ears. "But nothing we do now can bring them back. I'm going to have to go and talk to him-"

" _We_ are going to"- Mor put her arm around him, " _we_ can do this all together. _We_ can make this right, tell your father not to destroy them Rhys, because this can become so much more worse than it already is-"

Azriel frowned at her assertive reassurance to be the _better person_. It did not feel right to just let this injustice go.

It was a good thing their High Lord chose that moment to come out.

"Rhysand." An older and far less composed version of Rhysand exited the pulverized study, worried creases around his eyes made him seem ancient, his sternly cut hair dangled around his cheeks like daggers. Violet eyes meeting violet. "My son." His voice left no room for argument. "We leave in an hour, say your goodbyes, and meet me in the northern courtyard, we'll winnow there."

"I will." Rhys nodded grimly, his voice no longer twisted in denial or suffering. _Cold._ Just like his father.

"Good." Their High Lord's head whipped quicker than it should to Cassian, "tell the Generals I will have need of them when the time does come. Send twenty of your best warriors directly after me." He remarked in a vicious tone, cutting through time lost waiting for the inevitable, "I will raze their land to the ground. By the time I am done with them, there will be no Spring Court left"-

"But High Lord," Mor stood, her face a picture of horror, "this was the act of few… you would not punish _innocents_?" Azriel moved a fraction closer to her as the High Lord's dark waves pounded harder.

The broken male thankfully made no move to punish her. "They are _no innocents_ in my eyes!" He roared in renewed passion and left the room, hot in the pursuit for blood-soaked steel, still aware of his frozen son, "come Rhysand!"

Rhysand followed, and so they did too, out into the crowded courtyard, too many faces that craved such entertainment. They knew it. Very soon two of the most powerful High Fae would tear asunder another Court in vengeance for the fallen Lady Selene and little Lady Nyx, and it disgusted Azriel to think people could crave this sort of thing.

Mor's frightened whisper seemed louder in the courtyard, too many ears, "Rhys, please. Remember what I told you."

"I will try, I will try to make him see reason," Rhysand promised just as softly, his eyes too dazed for battle, both of his Illyrian brothers felt uneasy to let him go like this.

"You should let me go with you Rhys," Cassian had the balls to say. He was probably dying to say that since the moment he heard his father's commands, "I want be there." Cassian said before Rhys winnowed from the Court of Night and away from the friendship of his informal Inner Circle. "I want to fight for both of them Rhys."

"I have to do this alone." Rhys said, balling his fist. "I will be back," before he winnowed after his father.

The wind picked up, taking whatever remainder of his magic was left.

Their restless Illyrian wings were tempted to take it, and yet they did not. Rhysand's words echoed in Azriel's mind as the crowd began spreading thin at the lack of stimulus.

 _I have to do this alone._

Azriel had noticed Rhys' mouth twitch at the statement, as if it killed him to say it.

 _I have to do this alone._

As if what Rhys really wanted was for his brothers to join him in avenging a mother and sister.

 _Alone._

It was still a command Azriel knew Rhys had meant.

 _But he told Cassian that, not you_ , the shadows bickered with him.

As if his brother could hear the shadows tempting him, Cassian and Azriel locked gazes with each other over Mor's head, for once taking in the other.

"Azriel?" Cassian saw the change in the shadowsinger, the hidden rage he had hoped they would miss. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm sorry," Azriel whispered, a small look at the golden-haired female between them confirmed their suspicions, her eyes widening to the sudden realization, "but I must do this."

"Azriel no!" Mor's fingers curled the space where his body once stood.

Azriel had winnowed into wind and shadows.


	4. His Fury

**Chapter 4: His Fury**

* * *

 **KIANNA**

On the other side of Prythian, the glow of the sun had been muted over the grand wooden table that was now only lit by candlelight. The table was ladled with soups, salads, and various meats from the sentries' hunt that morning, all set for the family dinner.

Except tonight her father had not even touched his artfully placed food, too busy discussing things with her three golden-haired brothers. Too busy to notice how their ash-faced mother rubbed her hands underneath the table, cradling her heavy belly, eyes sad as they continued celebrating their victory against the winged beasts of the North, she kept clenching and unclenching her knuckles as they kept going on about a _delicious war_ with the Night Court.

Willow came to Kianna's side as her parents and brothers shared words, and her human slave cut Kianna's food into smaller and smaller pieces as her High Lord father droned on, until food was small enough for even birds to eat. She wanted to tell Willow that she didn't need to bother, that she should be getting rest, and not serve her after being such a _spoiled brat_ that got her hurt.

Instead, Kianna pursed her lips, "thank you Willow."

It was not her fault for trying to hard, her predecessor was hanged for not cutting up Kianna's food correctly when she had been only four years of age, and now this was one of the ways Willow kept her neck from breaking.

"As you bid, Little Lady." The meticulous and diligent Willow bowed, and returned to the wall, and her wounded cheek had been cleaned and bandaged. It was an eyesore among the rest of the human servants awaited to refill their cups and as they were trained to take away their meals when the High Lord finished his meal.

At ten years old, Kianna tried to understand the Wars with the humans meant for Willow, what Hybern's friendship meant for their family, and what her brutish brothers had hunted on their trip North to get them all excited like this. But like always she was lost.

"Hybern will have our backs naturally," Gavin spoke up, his wine never far from his hand tonight, "Ivar don't you think Dagdan and Brannagh will enjoy the news, even Amarantha would enjoy a fight like this, won't you like having her around Tamlin?" He teased the youngest of her oldest brothers.

Tamlin would have blushed at the mere mention of the fabled gorgeous Hybern general, but tonight he was just as ashen as Mother.

Gavin went on, raising his glass in celebration, "it's all exciting, why so grim Mother?" He told their mother, "we are warriors mother, don't fret," reaching over to rub her shoulder, not seeing the way her eyes darted away under his sudden touch, and to the hand draped over her swollen belly. "Won't you like to see the animal we made of the High Lord of the Night Court. I have to say Ivar could give Rhysand a run for his money, can't you Ivar," he shared a chuckle with her eldest brother Ivar, and Kianna knew anything they found funny would soon have blood and brawling in it.

"Hybern only cares for itself." Their High Lord father reminded his chattering son, rubbing his wine-laced lips that grunted in disapproval at his son's unabashed drunk smile. "I thought I taught you that already Gavin."

"They are our friends father; how can we think so poorly of them?" Ivar piped up, usually more talkative, but his eyes seemed to be wary as he regarded their mother and Tamlin's somber moods.

"I told you all to make them your friends," their father agreed, because it was no secret he had had raised his sons amongst the nobility of Hybern, working up the ranks of power to the King's favor, "but never for an instance forget when given the opportunity, Hybern will want nothing more than to wipe this family clean of Prythian and take it for themselves."

 _"Father, really?"_ Gavin muttered, but one look from his High Lord and Ivar and he was as somber as Tamlin.

Their father spoke up once more, "to believe that we could trust Hybern is a fool's error, when one of you ascends to High Lord, I hope that you remember my words," their father was ever the dark skeptic when it came to the almighty kingdom of Hybern over the waters, and the tyrant King that ruled it.

"We will remember," Ivar spoke up quickly, followed by Gavin. Both had contended for their father's approval, and she heard Tamlin and her mother whisper of the day they would fight for the High Lord's power they _both_ thought they deserved.

Like she expected Tamlin sat quietly amongst her brothers, the odd one out, and his eyes met his little sister's. For a moment she gave a timid smile to him. It hurt Kianna when he didn't have the heart to return it.

Her mother muttered around her cup. "You're wrong Tag."

 _"Excuse me?"_

"You're putting this family in danger's way," Mother spoke up over the slowing remarks from her sons, breaking whatever false peace was laid to rest. "Your acting worse than Hybern."

Tagnar cocked his golden head, more animal than beast, fur growing on his forearms, and his fingers growing black talons. "What did you say to me?"

For once she did _not_ back down at his show of power. "Tag, be reasonable, you know I'm right," she put her fork down, clutching her hands even tighter in her lap, and encircling the life she carried there.

"I am this," he smoothed a finger across the table, "close to _not_ being reasonable Leesa, so I would suggest you rephrase yourself," he bared his growing fangs at his mate.

"I will not." Leesa did not shy away from his beast-like state.

Kianna felt herself tense, the same way her older and far more experienced brothers did when their parents were at odds.

It was very rare for her mother to do something like this, her eyes bright for a fight, and their father all but snarling at her. That was enough to strike fear into each of her torn sons.

She dared their father's fury. "What made you do this? Why would you hurt a family like this?" It was as if she had shoved the knife into her gut, as her voice broke, "how could you take your petty feud with Marcus so far, he'll try to come here, and he will"-

"And he would die." Tagnar finished for her, so assured in himself, Kianna could feel the worry seeping from her mother's body next to hers, "just like all his pathetic traitors that don't do as Hybern bids. In the pages of history, they will remember this day as the first attack against those that dare disrupt the order of a Fae Prythian, of a Fae run World."

Gavin and Ivar leaned a bit forward at their father's tumultuous words, he went on, "when fate reaches a hand out for you to take it, you do not _think twice_ Leesa," he stressed, "and so… that is what the history books will read."

Their mother shook her head in denial, not so moved by his words, "it was Marcus that defied Hybern, not his wife or daughter that had to suffer for his words, for him standing up for what he believes in"-

Their father slammed his hand on the table, the humans and even Kianna jumped a bit, "Marcus thought he could get the better of us, he thought Tamlin would chose his traitor's son over his own brothers and father," Tagnar pointed a finger at Tamlin that slumped in his chair, perhaps hoping to disappear from their mothers' heartbroken face, "but _my sons_ know whom to be loyal to," he stressed his hold over _his sons_ , Tamlin shrunk while Ivar and Gavin preened. "This family is all that matters."

A plate slipped out of one of the servant's hands.

Kianna's mouth moved. "Oh no."

It shattered the conversation, and their father's eyes turned a darker shade of green, giving him the scapegoat he needed.

"I'm sorry High Lord Tagnar"- Kianna shut her eyes and ears when the servant lost both hands for being clumsy.

When she opened her eyes once more, her father's bloody talons were tapping on their mother's chair, _dripping_.

"Leesa." The beast in his chest rumbled, Tagnar's yellow fangs and suddenly vicious black talons prominent, as he began purring for his shaken mate that clutched her belly, tears rolling down her checks.

Kianna watched as her father touch her mother's golden hair, stroking it with only the tips of his claws. _Cautious. Gentle._ That frightened Kianna even more.

"Leesa forgive me, I lost myself." Blood was left on her mother's pristine locks, her mother made no motion that she had heard him. "Eat your food and afterwards meet me in my study," Tagnar drank some wine, wiping his mouth with the back of his bloody hand, blood being left on his face made him appear so feral, and Kianna feared for her mother, "come alone."

Tagnar left the room without so much a look to his sons' direction or the butchered slave that was dragged from the dining room, servants coming to rid the floor of blood. Kianna watched in fascination, when her mother, with a wave of her hand erased the blood from the ground, and saved them the hassle of hours' worth of rubbing the tile clean once more.

"Thank you, my Lady," the servants bowed quickly, and left them quicker than any human she had seen move before.

When her brothers finally left one by one, their mother refusing to meet their gazes, Kianna held her mother from leaving to go to him, "don't Mama, he'll do something to you."

"Kianna, don't say that." Her mother stopped rubbing the blood from her hair, and took her daughter's face, Kianna reaching out for the belly she had protected, feeling her little sibling kick back. At least that meant her siblings was strong enough to fight tonight. "Your father is my mate Kianna, do not fear for me," she muttered the words, there was no love in them, just cold understanding, "to hurt me, would be to hurt himself too."

"I'm still afraid." Kianna didn't like the idea of her mother being alone with him, no matter whatever this unspoken law of remaining safe meant amongst mates.

Her mother seemed assured, even a bit despondent. "I will smooth him over, and don't you worry," she tapped Kianna's nose, just like she had done every morning. "I'll be there to tuck you in my little one," her mother promised.

That was the only reason why she allowed Willow to walk her back to her room.

"Any story tonight my little Lady?"

"No." Kianna wanted her mother to tell her a story, and she leapt into her feather-bed, putting herself under the covers, and waiting.

They waited a good while, and when Willow began yawning, Kianna released her, "if I am asleep, wake me when Mother comes."

"Of course, little Lady." Willow blew out the candles in her room, leaving her in the shadow of the moonlight streaming through her window.

"Sweet Dreams-"

"Sweet Dre- _Willow?_ "

"Yes, little Lady," her cut cheek and hand looked far more serious in the dark, and Kianna felt this was the best time to say it. Least someone had been listening in or worse, Willow didn't take her apology, and made her feel worse for speaking out as she did.

"I'm sorry Willow," Kianna started there. "I should have been quiet... I should have said nothing, but I got you in trouble, and I feel so bad about it. I'm sorry if your angry at me, that my mother, that she hit-"

" _Shhh,_ little one," Willow said the same sweet name her mother called her, settling on her bed, and reaching out to Kianna's ear. "I forgave you hours ago. You know that didn't you little one, I don't blame you for trying."

Kianna's little lip bowed out, "but I meant it Willow, I want to free you all. I want for you to all go home, to stop this-"

" _Shhh,_ I know. My little protector," Willow tipped Kianna's little chin, and then looking at her hands once more. "I will have to put more salve on these tomorrow so that they heal properly, you remind me, alright little one."

"Yes Willow."

"Good girl." That was the first and last time Willow leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Sweet Dreams little one, leave these things to me, no more making your mother upset. Sleep little one."

"Yes Willow, sweet dreams."

Kianna still waited for her mother to come, or perhaps to rub the warm spot Willow had kissed her.

Her bright green eyes only drooping as the hours ticked by, and mind wandering to the howl of a wolf singing to the full moon out of her window.

The warm wind tickled her nose as she fought the sleep and dreams that would have her father's bloody claws, her mother fighting back, and no doubt her cold-blooded brothers watching on with stone hearts as their mother fell to his fury once more.


	5. The Promise

**Chapter 5: The Promise  
**

* * *

 **AZRIEL**

The alien world of green had a sleepiness to it.

A kind Azriel had not experienced with in the glitter of Velaris or the cut-throat expectations of the Illyrian camps of his childhood. Those caves had been coated in cold mist, cave-mouths opening into breathless mountaintops of pure starlight, and a sleepy mind was a weak one in this war-torn Prythian.

Nevertheless, it had taken him four hours to winnow halfway to the sweltering heat of the Summer Court, and then another two hours to fly over the bright orange and red lush Lands of Autumn to find the curve in the land that led to a monstrous expanse of the emerald forest before him. His shadows tucked close to him, reminding him of the darkness in each of the leaves and a below it laid a hidden world of beasts and fairies just as dangerous as the monsters the other Courts had to offer.

 _"Don't Az."_

 _"It will only be a moment," Azriel tried to smile at her, but it came out as a snarl. "Let me."_

 _"They didn't know any better." Mor's heartfelt whisper tore at his conscious and her soft hand on his arm tempted him not to act against two of the soldiers that had abducted and handed her over to the Autumn Court. "They were following orders."_

 _"I know." Azriel said, shaking her off, and following the prey down a corridor. They were monsters. That is all he thought when he tore their necks with his bare hands, imagining it was Lord Keir and Beron's bastard son Eris from the Autumn Court. One day he would get them too._

 _"Az no." Mor's horrified face was enough to wake him from the blind rage, but not enough to stop the blood pumping in his ears._

 _"They can't hurt you anymore."_

 _She slapped him and wouldn't speak for a month with him._

 _Azriel would take it._

 _The message he had made was clear. Even when Cassian whistled that he needed to control himself, and Rhysand had a long conversation of not killing the henchman, and not even thinking of killing Keir or Eris, Azriel would take whatever repercussions if it meant for others to know the consequences of hurting good-hearted people like Mor. That even overlords of this world would suffer for abusing the lesser, no matter their station._

Azriel stayed close to the cover of the trees, hoping that his troubled dark presence went undetected from the enemy, and not ruin whatever plans Rhysand and his High Lord had already set into place.

His belly and tips of his wings skimmed along the forest's canopy, tempting him to explore below, but he could feel a greater pull to Rhysand, to his High Lord, and he held onto that tighter as it led him to an opening to a vast untouched field of rows of grape and other produce, and beyond was erected a stark alabaster Manor, glowing windows in the dark night, refusing to succumb to the drowsy air that on any other night would seem a drunkard's paradise. The Spring Court.

Azriel landed on the meatier branch of a great oak tree. At this vantage point, he got a good look below him where Rhysand and his father had landed, _waiting._

It was Rhysand that noticed him first, his wings tucked in and irritable as the energy coming off him. "What are you doing here Azriel?"

Azriel looked back at Rhys and the High Lord, keeping his iron-clad grip on the branch beneath him, and the balance of his heels as it creaked at his weight of a fool-blooded Illyrian male. "The same reason you both are here."

The High Lord regarded his shadowsinger, before leaning over to slap his shoulder in greeting, "it's good thing you came."

Azriel took a deep breath, as his High Lord continued in a drawl that seemed far too calm for the topic, "Rhysand was just trying to talk me into _just_ killing Tagnar and the two older sons… leaving the traitor to draw breath, and leave the mother and sister be. _What do you think of that shadowsinger? What would they do in the war-camps?"_

In the war camps they would have butchered the entire family. Leaving the murderers for last, tear off their wings, pouring oil on their bodies, and lighting the flame. As they neared death, they would be thrown off the face of the mountain to their sure death below. But this was not the war-camps, not the Night Court either.

The air was tense in the Spring Court, a butchering or swift justice would come tonight, and Azriel thought it wise not to add to it. He only let the slight twitch of his wings be the only reaction they could take.

"Azriel would never speak against you Father." That was all Rhys needed to turn the conversation away from him. "But Mor was right, enough is enough, we will punish Tagnar and his sons. Blood will have blood," his Father nodded assent at that at least, "but we will spill none that are innocent of _their_ crime," Rhysand shook his head as if he could shake the memories of his mother and sister away, and as if it would clear his mind of his father's overwhelming fury at his son's unwillingness to kill the females. "We didn't come here to kill innocents Father."

"I bet they didn't come to kill your mother and sister feeling the same way," Rhysand's father cut back, "these beasts would break your soft heart," and even Azriel closed his eyes at the growl that rumbled from Rhysand.

"That will haunt me till the end of my days Father, I told Tamlin, trusted him, and I regret ever daring to care for that _traitor_."

"Regret will get you nowhere Rhysand. Only action will."

"There is nothing I would want more than to tear off Tamlin's head and send it in a box to his mother and sister. Make them feel this pain, maybe I would sleep better," Rhysand revealed anxiously for the first time, that he could be as bloodthirsty as them all, and perhaps moreso. For some reason, Rhysand's anger faded in an instant. "But that means I would have to send mine as well."

"What are you talking about? Your mother had Illyrian blood, she would have demanded justice. Why would you compare yourself with them?"

"Because I betrayed them!" Rhysand declared a bit too loudly. Azriel's ears pricking up for any sign of the Spring Court and sentinels coming this way, and it would appear they were in the clear.

Rhysand continued more mindful, "I betrayed mother and Nyx to the enemy. Nothing I do now could ever redeem me. Nothing you say can wipe the blood off my own hands. So why don't you treat me the same as the traitor, I had a part in this too!" The wind swept his words through the trees, right through his father's grim face, and Azriel kept a heavy look on the High Lord that became quiet and pensive at his son's words, a bit too quiet, and that meant something.

In the caves of his childhood there was an ancient Beast that could tear you to pieces without making a sound, only blood and bone would be left after it finished with you… _the High Lord was worse._ Azriel had seen him do worse, leaving no bone or blood in his wake, only the impression of the person that _had_ been. Leaving nothing for the family to mourn seemed a crueler fate than the worst the beasts of Prythian could do to you.

"I hear you." The High Lord's anger seemed a terrible thing with Rhys so close. "You seek my forgiveness Rhysand?"

Rhysand's body stiffened, so did Az, when his brother bowed at his father's words. "I don't deserve it."

"I will be the judge of that," the High Lord's eyes narrowed. "Did you mean for the death of your sister and mother? Did you plan in the shadows and celebrate their deaths?"

"Of course not! How could you- we both were there. You felt it"- Rhysand declared with so much honestly Truth-teller was humming against the strap of Azriel's hip.

"Did you plot behind my back to have me killed here, is the King of Hybern waiting for us here"-

"I do not speak with Hybern." Rhys growled.

"Then that's all I need to know. Let me give you this." Azriel had the first-hand seat to see the devastation that rolled through the High Lord as he jumped on his son' branch, reaching out to him, and swallowing him in an embrace that rocked the shadowsinger's instincts of protecting Rhys.

His shadows screamed at him to separate them both, too much emotion, too much power for them to leave one another unscathed, because his High Lord was vicious and cunning manipulator with little heart left to be called Fae, and that he couldn't love Rhys like that, was not capable of doing it, and yet… _father and son remained embracing one another._

The High Lord whispered in his ear, "I didn't mean it like that. I don't blame you my son."

 _"You don't?"_

"How could I blame you without blaming myself too?" Rhysand nodded into his father's shoulder. "We must remain strong my son, this is what they want."

"Yes, you're right." Rhysand drew a steady breath, leaning back, and for a second Azriel felt like he was looking at twins, he had so much of his father in him and he had not saw it till now.

Azriel released the part of the tree that was imprinted with his anxious hands.

Despite the embrace, the High Lord had not changed, if not, he was more assured now. "We need to get justice for what happened my son, this is the only way to set things right."

"I'm sorry Father," Rhysand leaned back from his father, "but your wrong."

Any lesser man would have had that arm torn from the socket, and the High Lord merely turned away with an exasperated sigh. " _When will you understand who we are dealing with?_ Tagnar's spawn are Hybern's pets if we don't send a message here, their friends will have the ammunition to come and destroy everything your mother and I hoped to give you. _Is that what you want?_ You want Velaris to fall to the hands of the enemy, your Illyrian brothers their slaves," he dropped his voice even lower, "Mor to be taken and once again defiled by the"-

"No. Don't say that." Rhysand said, and Azriel knew the command had been for him too, the shadowsinger let go of Truth-teller, returning it back to its proper place. _Would he have attacked his High Lord? Would he have landed a blow before he finished that sentence?_ Azriel drew his hand farther away from the blade just in case.

The reason soon became clear with every word his High Lord dared to say. "We can stop that War here Rhysand. This is your moment to choose if you can be the High Lord that is willing to sacrifice for Velaris, and for your friends…"

"I would sacrifice everything I have." Rhysand said through gritted teeth.

"Then prove it. Prove it here." Their High Lord jumped from his perch and to the forest floor below. Like a serpent in the grass he went forward, staking the land, and whatever souls dare get in his way tonight.

"We need to protect Tamlin's mother and sister," Rhysand had winnowed next to Azriel, quieter and far deadlier now that the hunt had begun, "promise me, leave the killing to us, but you must protect them while I keep him busy"-

For a moment, Azriel thought of denying him this. That he too deserved to take his own blood price for Selene and Nyx that had treated him as their own, had fed, clothed, and loved him to the point that he felt like Rhysand's brother.

"Promise me Az"-

"I promise." The words slipped out before he could stop them, echoing the ones he had said in front of a Mor and Cassian. "I will do what you ask of me. I am here for you Rhys."

"I know you are. Thank you, brother." Rhysand's violet eyes were alert and kind. "The war-bands and Cassian will be here soon, and my father doesn't want to waste much time. When they do come I am sure we will be already done here," Rhysand slapped his back, as if he wasn't going to attack the Spring Court, "are you fine Azriel?" He noticed something was off, _of course he would._

"I'm fine. Just ready." Azriel brushed off the soft touch of Rhysand's mind.

Such soft talk had no place here, and it made Azriel uncomfortable for him to be so physically close to Rhys' Daemati powers. Rhys said he had never used them on them, but the shadows whirled with the betrayals Rhysand could uncover in the depths of his less than moral mind.

"Follow me brother."

Azriel nodded as Rhys jumped down from the great oak, leaving Azriel to watch the path he chose through the stalks of tall grass and trees filled with fruit.

Despite his role in the Night Court, Azriel was loyal to Rhysand first and foremost. It was he that had accepted him into his family, shared his mother and sister with him and Cassian. Had entertained the notion that they _were brothers_. Not only that, Rhysand had allowed Mor to stay safe in Velaris, and that was not something Azriel could easily forget or repay in this lifetime.

"I will do what is necessary." Azriel mumbled under his breath when his High Lord winnowed into the Manor, screaming, glass breaking, and fire growing in his wake.

Azriel flew into the heat of the action, and shadowed Rhysand as they neared the Manor, knowing that when the time came to choose his High Lord or Rhysand, only one decision would protect the ones he loved.


	6. Protect

**Chapter 6: Protect**

* * *

 **KIANNA**

Kianna's feral green eyes flashed open, unsettled to find nothing there.

 _Get up_ , a voice echoed in her head. _Get out._

"What?" The sensitive hairs on her arms raised as if an electrical current moved about the room, it told her that a foreign presence lingered close.

 _You need to get out._ It told her again, this time she could tell it was female.

"Why?"

A malevolent presence that did not belong in her home seemed to be the answer. It was mingling and pulsing from every corner of her bedroom, moaning against the floorboards, creaking doors open with its near off energy. It invaded every safe thought she had nestled between her lungs, and the pulsing ache grew with each second that passed.

"Mama? Willow?" Kianna took a deeper breath to taste the heavy unease that lingered in the night-time air. "Mama! Willow!" Still nothing but the dark night answered her.

Even with the window open to the moonless dark sky outside, familiar warm air breathing its way in, the night did not hold the usual howls of wolves or even the dramatic incessant chirping of crickets, and it did nothing to calm her senses. It was as if the spring lands were holding their breath, and Kianna could feel the impending doom in the back of her bleary eyes as she rubbed the sleep from them.

"Willow!" She called for her human again, this time her feet dangling to reach the unsteady floor, and still nothing, no answer, and that is when she _knew_ something was wrong.

With only a loose cotton nightgown for protection, "Willow I'm scared!" Kianna pushed her bedroom door open to Willow's ante-room to find the sheets empty and her door flung open. It was flung wide open to the candle-lit hallway, with slaves and sentinels in armor running past it in a mad dash to get somewhere quickly, quiet, too quiet for a night such as this.

 _Shut-it._ Her mother's clear voice told her. _Hurry Kianna._

Kianna did so, just in time for an explosion that knocked her clean off her feet, and skidding her across the ground to make it under Willow's bed with her hands covering her neck and head.

"THE HIGH LORD!" More screaming, female and male, shouting of the sentinels. "Protect your High Lord!" The Manor shook harder, the earth and Manor ceiling seemed to be at war with itself.

She heard Gavin for a moment, "you bastard! I'LL KILL YOU!"

More explosions came in quick succession, whatever Gavin was battling made the Manor groan at the reckoning behind it, and Kianna let out a shrill scream when something heavy fell on Willow's shabby bed, and the springs of the bed seemed to groan under the weight, pinning her underneath. A piece of the wood lanced straight where her hand was covering her head.

"Ah!" It drew blood, but still Kianna was too afraid to see the damage done.

"Kianna!" It was Willow that was calling her, and she was closer now, she could smell her lemony and pine scent, so sweet for a human. Her human mother.

"Willow!"

"You will not get her. You monster!" Those words made Kianna freeze from leaving the bed. Whatever it was did not answer Willow. Then it was the unmistakable sound of a neck breaking, and Kianna tightened her ears and eyes for what came next. Wishing, wishing that she was anywhere but here.

 _"Get out Kianna, HURRY!_ " She hated those words, but she did as the voice said.

Expecting to see sentinel or worse the monster that was tearing her house to pieces, but it was neither.

It was a young male that stood before in the doorway, and not just any male. The horrible feeling swelled inside of her when she rubbed her eyes to really see if _dark shadows_ followed him as he sized her up. He made the very air chill, in the once safe darkness of Willow's room, nothing was safe from his darkness. He was the Dark. The Wings. Her brothers and father had brought him here, led him to their family, probably more of his vicious kind that dared even the horrible Hybern were right behind him.

"Night Court." Kianna remembered the mention of them at the horrible dinner, a slave screaming as his hands were torn off by her father, blood pooling with the rage of the _Night Court and it's High Lord Marcu_ s. Before that, her brothers had boasted that _Illyrian_ _battle leathers_ were inferior to their war armor. If they were inferior than Kianna couldn't see it, the male sported them with his massive warrior's build, probably a bit smaller than Tamlin, but still…. those intimidating black wings, moved in fierce motions with him as he passed the threshold of the Willow's room.

 _Jump out the window Kianna!_ Her mother's voice rose up, she was sure the male could hear it. _Get away from him._

She couldn't do that when he kept getting closer!

He was making it abundantly clear that he could overpower her the moment she chose to make a dash for it. He was close enough that she could now see his dark hair was soaked in dried blood, his tan skin was marred with cuts and scrapes from the fight, and his cut lip stayed in a grim line as he regarded her with those steely hazel eyes that screamed predator.

 _He's going to kill you too_. Kianna's heart was leaping against her rib cage, and she was ringing the life out of her dress as she fell to her knees, expecting the deathblow, and something inside of her became calm as she closed her eyes. Another explosion erupted upstairs in the Manor, but that could be miles away from where she was.

There was nothing she could do now, but as for the Gods to help. "I pray for Mama and the baby," Kianna raised her little hands, the way Auntie Maris did with Ianthe and her sisters during the mornings of Calanmai. "I pray for Willow to make it safe, and all the mothers and their children to find safety. That all the souls that have come to pass find their way to your Halls…" for some reason she knew her Mama was dead, and so was the baby. Because if her mother was talking to her now, urging her to survive, _to get out_ , either she had been long dead or Kianna had truly lost her whatever shreds of sanity was left after the brutality Fae were capable of. _As for Willow_... Kianna did not want to believe she was gone, not even in her last moments.

The next explosion was greater than the last, it came with a roar that ripped through the foundation of the Manor. It was still a wonder that her home was still standing, and what struck her now was that roar was a High Lord's roar, and yet not her fathers. Kianna's cheeks were wet as the blast flew her back a few feet, and flat on her back before she knew what happened.

The roar of a man followed the power. Her brother. " _Tamlin,"_ she groaned rubbing her aching chest, knowing he had found something that would bring her the same pain. "Ah!" She cried, clutching her chest that had erupted in pain. She lay there in shock, cradling her breasts, and trying to breath. It was as if a great power had been let loose and it electrified the air as it moved.

"Get up," the Night Court male said, his voice cool and detached as he stood over her.

She felt tears running down the sides of her face. Her hands shaking from the energy. "I can't."

"At least open your eyes."

She did manage that, slowly, and squinted up at him through her swollen eyes, moving sweaty golden curls that stuck to the sides of her tear-soaked face.

His face was an expressionless mask, kind-of-beautiful she noticed. The enemy was not supposed to be this handsome, but it would be nice one for the last face she saw. He held his right hand up, still clenched in a powerful fist. "I should finish what he started. I should do it…"

She didn't need her mother's voice for what came next.

Kianna moaned and rolled off the floor to where the window should be. The brisk outside was just out of her reach.

"No you don't-" the male grabbed her roughly before she made her escape, and then his arm was around her neck, pulling her to her feet. It had been effortless for him, a move and he had her just where she was going to end up. "Why would you turn your back on me?" It was as if it disappointed him to know how easy her death would be. Like he was thinking, _what a waste of my time. Pathetic weakling_ , her big brute brothers had called her once.

Kianna yanked on his arm, refusing to submit _, to be the weakling,_ feeling the muscles in his arms constrict her throat, "I can't breathe."

"You're lucky I was the one that found you." His arm relaxed a bit, raising her higher, until she was sitting on one of his arms, the other supporting her back, and thoroughly shocked at how calm she had become.

He was studying her. He asked, "What are you going to do about it? If someone came in here to finish you off?"

"I…"

"You have less than a second to react, what would keep you alive against a more adept killer…" it was as if he had taught this lesson before, and if Kianna was shocked before, she was past that now.

She responded to the best of her abilities, "to run away," she was so close to his face now that she felt her cheeks get red, his pine and mist scent invading her nostrils, "to get far away from you."

He smiled at that. "That would buy you some time." Kianna stared into the eyes of the male that had suddenly changed from the predator to one that she didn't feel so afraid of anymore.

She could notice how there was a golden rim around the center of his eyes, yellowish grey eyes… so unlike the blues and greens of her people. So, unlike the brutal strength the males had to command in her presence, it frightened and calmed Kianna to know that he had not brutalized or stolen her away… _she was perplexed by him._

"I know you are terrified. You should be terrified." His smile vanished from his face, something harder taking its place. "This place is where terrible things happen. The humans that are set lose could hurt you, torture you, get back at what your brothers and father have done to so many others." He muttered as if he had expected it to happen. "There are worse things than death."

Kianna struggled against him, but this time it was against his words. He wouldn't let go, and so she screamed, and his hand covered her mouth to block her scream. He moved them to the window, leaning out to see if anyone heard probably.

"You know who I am, don't you?"

He waited, watching her child's face. She was trying to breath past the pounding her ears, to figure the best answer to get him to let her go.

"I know you do."

She looked at him, trying to glare, and then nodded.

"Good girl. You're going to have to be honest if I am going to help you."

 _I don't want your help_ , she muttered against his hand.

"Shhh." He soothed. "If your loud then the freed slaves will come in here, and you don't want that?" Kianna did not want to be tortured. Without the order of the sentinels and her father, even her brothers, she was at the mercy of whomever wanted to seek revenge. "You're wondering why I am helping you?" The male nodded as he understood the dilemma, and Kianna listened in rapt attention, "because if you know _who_ I am, you probably know _what_ I am capable of doing."

She shook her head.

He seemed at odds with himself, "I am an Illyrian warrior." He finally loosed a low breath, as it was a great burden to share such information, "my name is Azriel, and I am here to protect you."

Kianna wanted to scream when he took his hand away from her mouth, but his hand wavered in the air, and she found it wise to let out a whisper instead, "what do you want from me?" She kept her voice low like his.

"I want everyone to believe that you ran away while the explosions went off," so he was going to steal her away, and that didn't bother her as much as the other things. At least she would be alive. He continued. "When my friends and I think it is safe enough in the Spring Court, then you will return to your brother."

"Which one?" It might not have mattered to him, but the type of brothers that were left to rule the Spring Court meant a great deal for her future here. It meant a great deal to those whom was left alive. She dared, "is my Mother alive? Is the baby alive?"

"Kianna."

She had not expected him to know her name, and that just made it worse.

"Whatever happens, I won't let your brother hurt you like that."

She shut her eyes closed as more tears leaked out, thoroughly embarrassing herself more because no one had made a promise like that. Well not a promise that they kept.

Azriel cradled her in his arms, securing her before he used his legs to push towards and out the window. Kianna shut her eyes closed as the air whistled through her hair and ears, and she tucked her chin further into his chest, and held on for dear life as the ground disappeared below them.

* * *

 _ **Tell me what you think?**_

 _ **Should I continue this story?**_

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 _ **Odeveca**_


	7. Belong

**Chapter 7: Belong**

* * *

 **AZRIEL**

Azriel could not do it.

To kill Tamlin's sister felt monstrous.

When it had been hypothetical situation, when he had rationalized his intentions with hate and fury in his heart it was different, it had seemed like justice then, but then the little female had crumbled before him as if he was a thing of her nightmares.

It had tumbled him to stone the moment he knew how utterly bizarre it was to be the monster in someone else's eyes. No matter what he had come to do, the message her death would send to never harm Rhys, Mor, Cassian, even the people of Velaris seemed like too steep of a price. The little female before him was innocent. She was innocent of her father and brother's crimes. Just as innocent as Nyx and Selene had been when those monsters butchered them.

It upset him to know that all the prestige he had built as the fabled shadowsinger to the High Lord and one of the greatest Illyrian warriors of this age… _meant nothing compared to the tears of a small child._

The Illyrians would have turned their noses at his weak excuse for a cute little face with big green eyes. But no matter what he thought, when he looked at the little female, something told him not betray her trust as she tucked her chin deeper into his chest as he flew to the tree-line where Rhys would surely be waiting for him.

To betray her trust would remind him too much of when Mor had trusted her father and family to protect her and not use her as livestock for the highest bidding price or spoiled goods when she slept with Cassian to spite them. Both thoughts didn't sit well with him, but that didn't mean he didn't respect Mor any less for fighting back for the simple right to live her own life. The shadows curled around his shoulders, pondering. _Did the little female remind you of a child Morrigan? Did she remind you of what your child would look like?_

Not in the slightest.

This little female was Fae, as Fae as one could be, but her hair was not gold like Mor's blonde, nor her tan skin as dark as his. Her curls, the ones that rippled against her scalp were more sunlight than the luster of stone that Mor's felt like. Hers seemed to ward off things like him that lived in in the dark. Her hands and feet were filthy green, possibly from her running in the fields, and her wild spirit would be so unlike the noble females of the Night Court, but perhaps not something so far from some of the wild Illyrian females that fought the clipping and the patriarchal traditions of their ancestors.

Nevertheless, what her spirit may say, her face had all the inclinations of a future heiress of the Spring Court, and yet her tears had all but brought him back to memory of finding Morrigan at the Autumn Court, stripped and… _No._

 _You still let it get to you. The Morrigan's abuse is not your pain to bear shadowsinger, you saved her, she knows that you cared for her when others would not._ The dark shadows lapped at his shoulders as he flew into the safety of the trees, trying to leach the tension away from him. _Take the girl, make sure none can hurt her. None dare would hurt her like Morrigan. One day she will thank you, perhaps be more of a family to you than the Morrigan ever could…_

He tucked his wings out, slowing his momentum. "No. She is not mine."

The girl sniffled when his arms tightened. To him he was only fighting against the power of the shadows. They tempted him to winnow back to Court with a new ward. They tempted him with his weakness for a complete family.

Kianna squirmed in his arms. "Your holding me too tight."

"I'm sorry." That was what brought him back to her as he released his death grip.

"It's fine." She sniffled and gave a little yelp when he finally landed on an enormous Oak tree, the same one that had once held Rhys, his father, and himself before he knew of what would happen in that Manor home.

The little female began to shake, clutching him tighter, and her large eyes getting bigger at the sight of the forest floor at least forty feet below them. "Are you afraid of heights?"

"Yes."

"I won't drop you." Azriel felt a weak smile spread over his face when she looked up at him. It looked as if she was thinking about the truth in those words. Something made him want to show her Truth-teller, only to validate the safety she could find with him. "I wouldn't be an Illyrian warrior if I dropped you from"-

"What happened to Willow?"

 _"_ _Willow?"_

Her little lip bobbed, tears leaking out her eyes, "everyone is dead… my parents, my brothers… the baby." She broke down once more, and Azriel did not have the heart to answer her. What could possibly give her the relief to know that he could have stopped this. That he should have listened to Mor and then Rhys about keeping her mother and her unborn child safe. Perhaps he was the monster in her mind.

Whatever monster he was, Azriel still held her body against his chest, comforting. "I'm sorry."

Kianna did not make a sound, refusing to withdraw from him, while his porcelain fingers latched onto the ends of her hair like he didn't know how to stop. Her little hand went to his neck, a gesture devoid of shame or fear and curled her own fingers in his dark tresses, testing them out as well. She seemed unafraid of him now, and far more at ease with the height of the tree. Curiosity suited her Azriel supposed. In the same way he had seen Illyrian children attempt their first flights way before they should.

Despite the comfort they found, his training reminded him to be wary of his surroundings. His experienced eyes roaming over the field of escaping human slaves, to the Manor in the distance being doused of the flames, and Rhys still had not returned… He fought with himself to leave her here and make sure the newly made High Lord had surely left, probably back in Velaris, turning the Court on its' head, and for some reason that brought the shadowsinger relief.

Rhysand was High Lord now. The High Lord of the Night Court.

Azriel smiled and wondered if his brother would accept Kianna into their Court.

"I might need to go check on the Manor, to make sure everyone got out"- Azriel spoke up, his tucked wings screaming at him to take off now while none expected he was still here. "To see if the damage is done."

"Don't leave me." Kianna spoke up, her eyes terrified. "Please you said it wasn't safe"-

"None of them can get you up here." Azriel reminded her, and she looked down only to grow paler at the possible fall to the forest floor below. "This is the safest place for you. You just need to make sure you don't lean over, hold onto the tree-"

"They could hurt you." Her words turned hysterical, "then I would have no one, they would hurt you like my brothers did the…" she broke down then, and Azriel did not have the sense to say that her eldest brother (once he regained himself) would be the protector if she stayed here. He wanted her to come with him. Azriel wanted her to stay far away from a Court that would not blink at the acts committed against out-spoken females like Mor or sniff at the likes of Cassian and him if they were ever given the chance.

"Azriel?" He looked down at Kianna that had been expecting an answer, she said softly and slowly, "can you take me, I mean would you get me away from here"-

 _"_ _Az."_ The shadowsinger felt a mind reach out to him. Rhys' Daemati powers were unquestionable in their percision.

 _"_ _Azriel."_ It was Rhys that spoke in his mind, weary, body and soul, and yet Azriel was more worried for the little body pressed against his. Compared to their power and strength she needed him more. _"Where were you? You were supposed to follow me back to Velaris. We thought you had-"_

 _"_ _I know."_ Azriel spoke back through the temporary bond. _"I got held up."_

He could feel the question forming in Rhys mind, and the hint of worry as he found his place back at the old Oak.

"It's time Kianna," Azriel leaned up on their perch. Scouting the lay of the land for… "Rhysand."

Rhys winnowed to them in the blink of an eye, his once curious eyes were furious at the sight of Kianna clutching the shadowsinger.

 _"_ _By the Cauldron."_ His voice was severe. _"What have you done Az?"_

"I want to take her back with us, where she could be safe"-

Rhys gave him a look as if he gone bat-shit crazy, well not that much severity, but close enough. "What would Tamlin say? When you stole his little sister after he just lost his whole family to our Court? Do you want to start a war Azriel? After a night like this," it was like Rhys was cursing the night itself, and he could feel the disappointment of his brother and High Lord. He had lost a father, and now… all he had was his friends. Azriel was supposed to be here for him, be comforting him, and making sure his rule over the nobles and war-camps was secure and unquestionable.

That was what made this so difficult, "I'm sorry Rhys, but I can't let her go back there."

"And I can't let you put my people and our friends in danger Azriel. Our people Az," as if he could forget it, "you would but _our home_ in danger?" Of course, he wouldn't mention Velaris in front of anyone outside of their Court. Even a defenseless child that could find happiness there, and that rubbed the shadowsinger wrong. Still Rhys went on, "she will be safer here, he is her family, this is where she belongs"-

"To be abused just like all the females of this Court." There he said it, there was no going back now, and then Kianna began to cry in his chest once more, and Azriel held back from comforting her to give Rhys one hell of an argument. "If this was Morrigan, if you had a chance to save her before all the evils they put in her life, would you do it Rhys? Would you save her? Because I would, I would do anything for the people I love."

"Az." He barked a pissed off laugh, "Not only is this the most I ever heard you talk." At least he was right there, "but you have no idea what type of man Tamlin is, and the fact that this little child is not Mor, and she never will be." _Why did he have to say it like that?_ "So maybe tearing her away from the only family she has left is not the best idea, _brother."_

"My brother, _Tamlin made it?"_ Kianna wiped her eyes, speaking against the Illyrian leather of his arm, and the lightness in her voice made him rethink his motives. "He's a good brother," now that was not something Azriel had expected. "He won't hurt me. He was kind to me."

"See, she agrees with me." Rhysand said as if the hope of a child was reason enough to let her be here.

"What if he does hurt her one day?" Azriel made it stick, "would you protect her then? Would you take her in as we did for Mor?"

"What is your deal Az?" Rhys made it sound as if this was impossible for a powerful High Lord like him. "She is not under my Court." So, he had been listening to his thoughts, "only getting the gist of what made you want to abduct a small child. She belongs to the Spring Court."

Those words broke him. "She belongs to no one!"

Rhysand's eyes grew wide with shock.

The silence was long and uneasy. Suddenly he was aware of the forest, of the beasts, of the Manor, and that this was the worst place and time he should be arguing with Rhys.

Azriel breathed a deep breath, releasing the anger from himself, that was the first and last time he would yell at Rhysand that looked as if he had lost the shadowsinger for good.

"Let me go Az," Kianna saying his shortened name brought him to regard her for once. "I'll be fine, I'll be safe." _I'll be fine, I'll be safe,_ she said so easily. Did _she mean those words?_ Azriel did not need his shadows to tell him otherwise. She showed no hate or fear while looking over his arm and to the Manor that was no longer on fire.

She no longer looked so despondent, stealing glances at the Manor as if she wanted to see for herself if her traitorous brother would be there. The same brother that had let Nyx and Selene be mutilated and done nothing to the murders. Who was to say that Tamlin would not do the same to her one day? That he would find it in his interests to sell off her virginity and make her a pawn in his games? Could Azriel sleep at night knowing that another innocent would be _used_ by this Hybern-loving family.

"They are her family too Az." Rhys said softly and slowly, as if he was afraid of frightening him. "If it ever came to that… we could still protect her."

It took everything in Azriel to nod to his exceptionally understanding High Lord.

He should be dead for speaking to a High Lord like this. Azriel knew that if Rhysand was not his brother and friend first… then he would have been casted out or worse.

"I'll take her." Rhys reached out for her, and Azriel felt Kianna stiffen against his chest, her little arm tucked around his waist briefly touched the base of his wing. It sent a ripple through him that made him stand and scout the dark path of grassland that led back to the Manor.

 _"_ _I'll do it."_

* * *

 ** _So was this what you expected?  
_**

 ** _What would you like to see in Kianna's chapter? Don't be shy :) Love to hear what you have to say.  
_**

 ** _Love you guys,_**

 ** _Odeveca_**


	8. Afraid

**Chapter 8: Afraid  
**

* * *

 **KIANNA**

Burnt walls.

Shattered glass.

It was as if her home had died from the inside out, rotting in its blood-shame, and the distant cry of a forgotten slave was the only sound for miles of the once lively Manor.

Kianna found her nerves on edge staring at it, she digged her fingers into her skin, and Azriel tugged her along, "come."

They walked around the side, the grass scorched and trudged upon from the stampede of escapees. She looked beyond the despair and saw the same green hills of yesterday. It _seemed_ like just yesterday when her parents took her brothers and herself on a morning picnic. Those _happy days_ were imprinted in Kianna's memory _._

 _Watching her father dozing on the blankets next to their mother, for once at total peace as he napped. For her, as the baby of the family, this was open season. Kianna tickled the great beast of her father, a daisy brushing playfully against his leg as she wiggled her little wrist at him. She was like a baby cub flicking the mane of the Alpha Male of their pride, she was tempting his ferocious retort, but took the risk anyway._

 _Her mother didn't even tell her to stop, instead having a deep conversation of how proud she was of her brothers and the Fae males they were becoming, of how strong of a family they were, and such doting sons that choose to spend the time at their home instead of elsewhere._

 _But they weren't doting sons…_ her mother must have been blind, because her brothers were too busy drawing up ways to spar with the sentinels, chattering about their Hybern friends, and too busy to see how precious their time together was.

If only they had known what would happen.

"It's safe now," Azriel said as they ducked into a shattered window, letting that be their secret entrance to the Manor, "here," he lifted her over the glass, and then carried her up the stairs, silent as the grave and so they made it without being caught.

Kianna closed her eyes against Azriel's shoulder, trying to pray, but failing to get words out. Auntie Maris had said once The Mother was always watching over them, from the youngest to the oldest, she watched over all Prythian, and Kianna felt her mouth go dry at the evils The Mother had let happen in her family.

The Mother must not care because when Azriel brought her back to her bedroom, she is clutching his leg as he finally let her go, and she looked about in horror at what was left of it.

"It's alright to be afraid Kianna." The shadowsinger gave her a few moments to take in a too quiet Manor, the emptiness and destruction to the place she loved most, pools of blood had leaked in from the hallway, and she didn't want to think too much on that fact. "But your safe now," Azriel promised, his hand finding hers, and helping her feel so.

She might be safe, but she felt a great sadness to know that she could not sleep in her own room without remembering. The walls torn of the insulation, the floor racked with claws, and Willow's bed demolished in her wrecked room, the hallway was worse off, she concluded that she would have surely died if she had stayed here.

 _"Azriel,"_ her voice afraid.

"Yes?"

"I can't"- She wanted him to pick her up and take her away from this place. To elongate the pain, she would feel at finding her dead family, and having to confront Tamlin… She didn't know her brother enough to even comfort him for something like this. _Would he be like their father? Would he take his anger out on her? Blame her!_

"Goodbye Kianna, be safe."

Kianna sucked in a quick breath at those words and latched onto Azriel's before he took off, his dark wings blocking the dawn's light from the window, the skin of his wings was bit of red up close, crimson black she decided, and extremely soft against her arm as it curtained them for a moment.

"What is it?"

She tugged on his rough hands, scared and mangled against her smooth baby flesh, "Don't leave me."

"You have to let me go," Azriel muttered her words back to her, a sly smile growing on his lips when she didn't budge from his nudge, " _you don't want to see me go do you?"_

She didn't know how to tell him that her Mother and Willow had kept her in a bubble all her sheltered life. Dressing, bedding, and playing with her in seclusion of others, to keep pretenses that a High Lord's daughter did not socialize with those below her station, and in that isolation, _they had cursed her._ She felt safe with Azriel, felt his _compassion_ for her, a soft look that only lasted in her Mother's eyes, and that was a far cry from what she felt with her brothers.

"I don't know anyone."

 _"What?"_ Azriel frown returned, the one he had gave his friend Rhys, another Illyrian warrior Kianna assumed with the wings and Illyrian leather. "What do you mean you don't know anyone?"

"I don't have anyone." She let him make his own conclusions from that. "I'll be all alone."

"You won't be alone." He sounded so sure. "This is your home Kianna. The guards will take care of you, make sure no one hurts you, that's why there here," Azriel urged and prodded her to the door that hung on its hinges, and still she held tight onto him, "come on," he groaned, "they will take you to your brother, hurry, before they see us."

"You aren't staying with me?" Kianna felt more perplexed, "but you saved me? You saved me from the thing that came to kill my family, you are different Azriel"- she knew that with every bone in her body. Her life had rested in Azriel's hands, and he had even protected her from his own High Lord. That was more than her brothers ever did for her Mother.

"Azriel, don't leave me, stay here with me." Kianna pleaded with all her strength.

"I came with my own High Lord Kianna, I belong to another Court, your father attacked my Court."

Kianna felt her stomach drop, "we didn't have anything to do with it, why did my Mother have to die? Why did we have to suffer for his fighting?" That was the question that boiled under her skin, and she wasn't sure any answer would make it better.

"I know." He said thickly, "it wasn't right what happened," Azriel confided, "but, my presence would only make it worse for you, more people would die Kianna. I don't want that to happen,"- he grimaced the moment Kianna made a sound of surprise, shaking her head slowly at the sudden realization that he had been a part of this assault. That she was clutching onto the leg of someone responsible for her Mother's death, Willow's death.

She released him, holding her sweaty palms, suddenly anxious. "You knew this was going to happen?"

Silence hung like smoke in the dim dawn's light between them.

He didn't answer that. Instead saying gently, "He _was_ my High Lord, I was sworn to protect and obey," Kianna shook her head in sadness, he lost the gentle, cold, hard, and inflexible, "but his bloodthirst will end with him Kianna. Rhysand will make a better High Lord, a better person, he will learn from his father's mistakes," so that man had been his High Lord. Rhys or Rhysand of the Night Court as Azriel had called him, and the news that she had been so close to her families' murderer moved Kianna with a fury she didn't know she had. Her hands balling into fist, and then her teeth sounded like grating stone in her mouth at letting him get away.

Azriel saw this. "He won't start a War after all this bloodshed. Rhysand is done with death," his fist tightening too. "I'll make sure you," he paused, "and your brother are left in peace."

She turned on him. "So, you're going to be my enemy."

"Maybe your brother's enemy," he said so simply it made Kianna take a step back. He added quickly, _"Not yours."_

She heard voices rising down the hallway, searching through the debris, Kianna gulped in an angry breath, "my father told me never to trust your kind, and yet… you save me, why did you save me? Hurry before they come."

"Because it was the right thing to do."

"I knew it!" That was all she needed to hear before she launched herself at his waist, hugging him tightly, "I knew you were good. I just knew it."

"Be safe Kianna," he said as she finally let him go, somberly watching him take a few quick steps, flap his mighty wings, and fly into the air, toward the light blues of the dawn sky. He made it to the bend in the trees by the time the sentinels found her. Kianna inhaled his scent that still lingered in the room, pine and soft mist, the dawn rising over the hills of the Spring Court.

"Lady Kianna."

Her brother's sentinels were pale when they found her, looking at her like she was a ghost, and for some reason this didn't scare her as much as seeing her _new_ High Lord brother.

She let the fury at Azriel's violent actions, the bitter regret of not leaving with him, and the guilt at wanting to leave with him wash over her stressed mind like a balm.

Instead she let the disgust of his Azriel's connection to the murderer boost her confidence to meet the other survivor of this hellish night.

 _"Where's Tamlin? Where's my brother?"_

* * *

 _0o0o0o0o0o0_

* * *

There seemed to be no getting away from Aunt Maris dry tears and dark words "our mother once said the past is a different country. This might as well be a different world with Tagnar and my Leesa gone." There she went crying into her hands, and yet no tears. She seemed to get a greater reaction to the putrid sweet scent wafting through the curtains, "Oh, Vanir! Can't you shut that window! The girls shouldn't be smelling corpses. It's bad enough with all the blood on the walls, and now we have a graveyard to contend with. I can't tell how you can stand it!"

"Enough female! I heard you the first time," Vanir growled, shutting the curtain, and going back with his conversation with the Captain of the Guard, Dakar Greenseer. The Vallahan noble had married her Aunt at a very young age and therefore had the pleasure of giving Kianna three female cousins, Ianthe, Zinnia, and Begonia. The last that was thankfully her own age, and the other two were her major by at least thirty years, not as old as her brothers in their blooming youth, but old enough to no longer be considered children by Fae standards.

Ianthe seemed to be the ring-leader of the three, and quite stern like her father, but rather vocal when there were handsome males to entertain, "Mother please. Calm yourself before you make a fool of yourself."

"But what can be done?" Aunt Maris blew into her handkerchief, her nose dry, and Kianna thoroughly irritated at her show, and their lack of attention to her, and what her family's death meant for her. "Tamlin," her Aunt sniffled, "why can he not see us? Why must he be so cruel in this hour of need?"

Kianna's eyes went to the study's door, her father's study, and now it was Tamlin's. As was everything and every problem he denied listening to as he holed himself inside.

"He is no longer a green boy," spoke up the Captain of the Guard, "he is your High Lord, and you will speak on his behalf and name with good intent."

"She knows Dakar," Vanir slapped his back, "it's the way of woman to moan and bellow, she means no wrong in it."

"Mother, Tamlin has the right to grieve in his own way," Zinnia spoke up, the skinner and dark-eyed version of Ianthe's curvaceous and gorgeous form, she dabbed her own handkerchief around her wet eyes, "he must feel as if he is alone in the world. You shouldn't be upset with him so, we should work together to help him through-"

"Alone!" Aunt Maris screeched, "He thinks he is alone!" She scoffed, "we are his family! The only family he has now, and how can he condone this behavior without thinking of our own feelings, and there is much to tell of what we will do with all the mess the Night Court left? Oh, and the visitors," she bemoaned as if she was about to burst with all the weight of that new development. "How will we give food and house in this state when the very demon from hell was sent to ruin us and look at our High Lord's state of mind! Foul fiends coming in the dead of night, killing babes in the womb!"

"Mother, not in front of dear Kianna." Zinnia spoke up, while Ianthe rolled her eyes at all the fuss they were making.

Kianna stood from her seat beside a sullen Begonia, tired of being an _invisible._

Without a single word she stalked forward to the study's door, the one her brother had roared at whomever was brave enough to attempt to enter. Her hand was sure as it turned the knob of the study's door, and her ears were deaf to the shouts for her to come back.

The door closed behind her with a click, and none came to take her back.

Kianna appraised the still dark and rather windy room. The room was worse than the outside, the walls had been torn by a talon hand, the paintings worse off, the windows were holes in the early morning, and her father's desk was thrown against the wall. In the chair, facing off against the balcony of green and rising smoke sat a golden-haired Fae, broad shoulders, long legs, and blood covered in every nook of him. He looked beaten, a dog beaten at his own butchering game.

Kianna felt as if she should be far away from him, but after Azriel's departure, all she seemed to feel was how empty she was inside. It made her mind go to mush, and her words harsh as she reminded herself that this was Tamlin, _and he had fault just as much as her father._

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself." Kianna bit at him.

Tamlin's responding growl made her jump, but she didn't move an inch back to the entrance door. Thankfully he did look up before she lost her nerve, and was just as overwhelmed as she seemed to be with this reunion, those green eyes, her Mother's eyes, _her brother…_

Kianna felt the tears come freely now, "we are supposed to stay strong. Mother told me to stay strong no matter what, I know she told you too." She fought her survival instincts and rushed up to him, right into the width between his legs, and held tight onto his talon-less hands, then moving her hands to his blood-soaked face. "You're my brother Tamlin. Please."

She was not sure whom she was trying to convince him or herself. She just hoped he was not like their father. "Please Tam."

"Kia." He muttered, as if he just remembered she existed, and then she erupted in tears.

"I'm sorry." Kianna muttered the words over and over. Perhaps she felt guilty for wanting to leave him, wanting to take the easier way out, but she knew the words were best in this case.

His arms went around her for the first time in their lives, holding her, and she laid her head on his shoulder not daring to be the first one to let go.

* * *

 **How did you like it :)**

 **thank you for reading, all my love,**

 **Odeveca**


	9. Inheritance

**Chapter 9: Inheritance**

* * *

 **AZRIEL**

Azriel blew out the hot breath pooling in his mouth, it tickled his nose upon release, and he instinctively tucked in his wings tighter, as if he was preparing for flight, _but really_ , he was just trying to keep his body heat from escaping. Simultaneously, he was keeping himself busy by watching Cassian swing his own legs over the stone ledge they sat on.

Both Illyrian warriors peered down at the ending ceremony below, amongst the weathered and ancient gargoyles they hid, while getting a bird's eye view of what they had to deal with.

"I didn't know the Night Court had so many nobles and war-lord leaders."

"We don't." Azriel frowned as Cassian's unknowing remark. "They are hoping Rhys will stir things up tonight, give them a chance to rise where others fall."

"That's unlikely," Cassian chuckled, "Rhys isn't one to tear others down. He'll probably banish some of the vulgar ones, but he won't upset the order of things… I don't blame him for doing that for the Court of Nightmares," Cassian shivered in mock disgust. "He should overlook that hell-hole, if they can get the job done and stay out of our way then let assholes be."

"Don't let the Hewn City nobles hear you say that," Azriel loosened his wings for a second, bringing them back in, "especially when they feed off each other's unrest. Rhysand still needs to pretend like he hand-picked whom he put in power. Makes them think twice of turning on him when the opportunity should rise." Azriel had his spies and shadows for that, but it never hurt to be proactive.

"Maybe your right," Cassian joked, "thank the Cauldron it's Rhys and Mor down there, I would have clobbered a few for just asking for more, _greedy little shits_."

"Thank the Cauldron," Azriel dryly agreed. He too found it disgusting, especially when Cass and him came from nothing, and once they retired (if they got to live that long) they would return happily to a peasant's wealth and life.

For a solid hour, Cassian had joined him to scout the continuous line of heads streaming into the House of Wind, entering to the doors for a traditional _first meeting_ with the newly anointed High Lord. All potential assassins in Azriel's mind, but less so as the hours ticked with no suspicious action to speak of.

Azriel was ready to rest his eyes but thought of a better idea. "Cassian?" For once the shadowsinger was the first to break the silence. "Was it always this cold?" The winter winds seemed harsher this season for some reason. "I thought it was only this cold at the Steppes, or was that just me?"

Cassian didn't wait a second once he noticed Azriel's bored gaze. "I'm freezing my fucken balls off Az," that brought a small smile to the shadowsinger. "You might be doing what Rhys asked you to do, your spying shit," he waved a hand, not really interested in anything that diverged from his role as General of Rhys' court armies. "But what the hell are we doing up here anyways? I thought we were supposed to join Mor and Rhys at the blessing and coronation?"

"We will," Az muttered, knocking his crouched knees together, "do you see any familiar faces?" The House of Wind was streaming with nobles, and Illyrian war-lords, and their following retinue, to meet with the new High Lord and assure their place and power in this new era of the Night Court, of course Cassian would recognize a few faces, as well as a few wings.

"I know a few," Cassian's eyes seemed to be trained on the coven of Illyrian wings following the very familiar face of Devlon as they strode like an arrow through the parting crowd, " _what a cunt._ I fucken hated his guts for years, and now look at him!" Azriel did and did not see the reason for Cassian's blatant disrspect, there was a story there. Cassian's face did not lighten, he looked like he was in need of a good drink, "we must play nice, hell with that. I am not going to enjoy this, damn it." It looked like he lost the battle with himself. "Rhys would have my ass if I touched a hair on his head. I can't believe what Rhys is going through," he waved his hand, "with having to listen to these power-hungry mongrels in his mind."

"I know the feeling." Azriel's eyes were trained on his own cunt. "He better watch himself today, especially around Mor." If Lord Keir Darkbringer so much as whispered a foul word in her direction Azriel was sure Truth-Teller would find a lovely space in his carotid artery.

" _You_ better watch yourself." Cassian brought him back from his dark thoughts, he knew Az too well. "You remember what Rhys told you the last time you lost control with Keir's men."

"Pour poison in their drink?"

Cassian slapped his back. " _Behave Azriel_ , you know what I meant."

Azriel felt a true smile tug on his lips.

The distinct snap of air and space made with winnowing brought their attention to the balcony space behind them.

They had expected Rhysand, or Mor, perhaps to get them to be present for the last meetings that required a bit more intimidation of the Inner Circle.

But instead they got two child-like half Fae females, shrouded in smoke and shadow as they walked forward to the intimidating Illyrian males, fully corporeal despite the moving clouds they inherited from their mother. The darkness bit at them heals, and their supple dark skin was stark against the glistening white marble of the House of Wind.

"Nuala, Cerridwen," Azriel's smile grew to greater proportions, motioning them closer, and trying not to scare them as he had done the first time he had met them. "Did you get what I asked? Did my friends treat you both well?"

They nodded simultaneously, and Azriel felt his shadows come alive around him as theirs came closer to him. _They were successful shadowsinger_ , his shadows answered him and theirs too, shifting and curling welcome as the twins handed him the list of names his network of spies had procured for him.

"Well done little ladies. I have something for you too." Azriel reached into the pouch at his side, revealing twin fabrics of rich shiny aquamarine scarves, their simultaneous grins were answer enough for him.

"Hey! Not so fast," Cassian tutted when they began to whisper over the new scarves rather than pay their respects to the pleased guardian shadowsinger, "what do you say to Azriel?"

"Thank you Azriel," his twin wards said in sing-song wonder.

Azriel blushed and waved them off, "I'll meet you both back home. Lock the door with the spells I taught you and wait for me there. I will be bringing dinner, but there is snacks in the cooler if you do get hungry."

"Yes Azriel." They winnowed home without another word, both clutching their new scarves in shared delight.

Their sudden absence left him aching to finish the day and return to them.

 _"Yes, Mama Azriel."_ Cassian said in an annoyingly sing-song voice.

"Shut-up." Azriel got up from him crouch.

Without a word needed, both he and Cassian were standing, ready to jump off and join the gathering at last.

"How are you really doing Az?" Cassian said before they jumped. "Rhys told me about the little female in the Spring Court, but you never really talked about it. Did you want to bring her here to live with us? Is that why you took the twins, are you feeling lonely?" Azriel rolled his eyes, but Cassian took it as an invitation, "brother come on, I'm worried about you. How about we could go to the club later tonight after we finish here? I know this female with the biggest -" his hands went to his chest.

"No Cassian."

"I was just trying to help, there is nothing wrong with feeling lonely, and wanting someone to"-

"Drop it." Azriel clamped up once more, jumping off the ledge, and gliding back into his place as the spymaster to his High Lord and not the Illyrian that dreamt of the smell of roses, and those bright green eyes.

"What's his problem?" Cassian followed his dive into open air, the wind swallowing his words, and his instincts telling him Azriel was not over what happened in the Spring Court.

* * *

 **0o0o0o0o0o0**

* * *

Azriel's place as spymaster was in the shadows of a curtain, but still over Rhys' left shoulder as he held a smaller meeting amongst the close friends and family of: Lord Keir of the Hewn City and his nobles, Devlon of the Windhaven Camp, and two other superior Illyrian war-lords of the south, Feng and Ramzan.

His purpose, after handing Rhys the list of likely traitors and their crimes, was to intimidate the other Illyrians and spooked nobles with his eyesore of a presence. A shadowsinger was a child cloaked in whispering shadows. One of his kind had not been born in three hundred years, and the last known shadowsinger had met a bad end in Ramzan's camps. It was no wonder that the very same Illyrian warlord eyed him as if he was a beast off his chain.

Devlon eyes narrowed when they met him, studying him perhaps, and perhaps his face reminded him of his Lord father that he had not seen in decades. Azriel noticed the overwhelming pride Devlon had as he wore his own Illyrian leathers in front of the snobbish Fae nobles of the Dark City. Devlon's were weathered more than Cassian or his, an eyesore amongst the fancy nobles' robes and tunics, encrusted in gold and silver, and designs of their House or Gods, but he held himself with a pride worthy of an Illyrian King. As for Azriel, he needed his shadows for the looks those snobbish Fae nobles gave him. Perhaps they had more experience in this game than his Illyrian brethren, his _whispers_ ringing more loudly with them here.

 _Oh they like to think so_ , Rhys mumbled in his mind while he spoke to a buxom red-headed nobleman's daughter, the father glaring daggers at his High Lord's roaming hand, and Azriel fought the growing grin in a place like this, remaining the Shadowsinger statue.

Instead, Azriel stayed very still when they looked his way, tempting insubordination, hoping his shadows told him whom was their enemy amongst the many. _Still_ , his shadows did not answer him, did not whisper anything but the usual communal whispers around the room, and amongst those he heard the usual plotting he and Rhys had already expected.

" _He is powerful. I wonder how he will use that power."_

 _"We must be forceful with our complaints, perhaps he we will overwhelm him-"_

 _"Did you see the way he chose Illyrian's in his Inner Circle, it is simply not done!"_

 _"I would love to suck his big fat-"_

Azriel pulled back before he got sick. Despite what he heard, his shadows seemed to be asleep since the Spring Court, and that worried Azriel for other reasons. Rhysand had inherited all his father's allies and enemies, and what bothered him the most were the ones that were still left undecided. That was why Azriel needed to be on his game more than ever. The High Lord's position came with many responsibilities. Rhys would have to make his people see there was no other way but to follow him, that he was not a weak leader, that he could be brutal, but he would not be like his father. Rhysand would have to play both roles... flawlessly...and that would be no easy feat even for him-

 _I'm working on it Az_ , was Rhys' dry echo in the shadowsinger's mind as he let go the horny red-head noblewoman before her father ran up the steps and tore off his-

 _Az, please, I'm trying to focus here_ , Rhys said confidently a final time before his mind left his.

Azriel felt the pressure come off his shoulders, he was being overly worried, worrywart Cassian had called it, because if anyone could bring all the Night Courts to heel and the Illyrian war-bands back into their place it would be Rhysand.

Despite that assuring development, he couldn't help but notice that Mor was glorious in a gown of pure gold on Rhys' right hand, a breezy and sophisticated smile looked right on her as her hand was kissed repeatedly by nobles that would never have done it before. For a moment, he imagined what life they would , what life he would have, if Mor was Rhys' Lady Consort of the Night Court.

 _It would be a struggle for Rhys to find a better match_ , Azriel grumbled in his mind.

Morrigan was brave, intelligent, and rather a sociable High Fae female with all the makings of a noble leader, her part in the Human and Fae Wars had helped so many unfortunate, and that was something that all but solidified Azriel's approval of her. He would never dare think he was worthy of her, females like Mor were smart enough never to even dare think of such a low-born match.

But, _in a gathering like this_ , the nobles of her kind were petty enough to only see her beauty.

It was not hard to see why. Her gown attracted many wandering eyes, her symmetrical and pleasing face moreso, but her gown as lighter than her hair, complimented her, _close to the color of sunlight_ … but not close enough.

Azriel looked down to his poorly gloved hands, the same ones he had worn and taken off that night and remembered when he had rocked and petted sunlight hair. How his scared fingers had felt so warm against her scalp, the air had been so sweet in the Spring Court, the crickets incessant chirping as he felt her holding onto him for protection, and the feeling of Kianna softening against him, wanting to leave that place, _to come back with him_ ….

"Azriel." Mor had snuck up on his place covered by the dusty and heavy throne-room curtains, blinding him with her dress and the slight worry rimming her kohled brown eyes. "It's stuffy in here, can you take me outside?"

"Of course." He lifted his arm out as Rhys had done a thousand times, she took it without a second thought, her gaze flickering to the throne's dais she had left which now was taken up with only Rhysand and… _her mother and father._

Azriel understood her urgency now.

They made it to the balcony furthest from the ceremonies' guest, and the first thing she did was tear off her gorgeous earrings and throw them to the white marbled ground, "how dare he bring my mother here. Especially when Rhys told him not to." So that is why she had left so suddenly, "he knew how much that would bother me, and of course he did it to get a rise out of me. He wants to make me uncomfortable, see me run away from them, _the bastard_ ," she mouthed off, "he wants to see me weak. I hate him Az, I just hate him so much."

Azriel wanted to agree with her, tell her all the ways he thought of making her father suffer, making sure that he never breathed a relaxing breath again, but he knew this was not about what he wanted to do. Instead the shadowsinger calmly reached down and picked up the gorgeous gold earrings and gently handed them to back to her.

She stared at them, and at last took them back. "Thank you Az." She gave a long and steady breath, "why are you so good to me?"

 _Because your worth it_ , Azriel might have said once, but after going to the Spring Court, seeing what it was like to be a female surrounded by pig-headed males he knew the real answer now.

"I respect you Mor." Azriel muttered, taking to the ledge as he found himself doing more often, and pretending to be occupied with the people below it, "everyone should treat you this way."

"If only everyone could be like you," she said sweetly, and that made him blush for some reason. She caught this and quickly added, "Cass said you were feeling down since you had been back from the Spring Court. Is that true?"

Azriel didn't say anything, looking harder at the people below.

"You know you can be honest with me Azriel." Mor voice was softer now, understanding. "I think these past five years have showed you how close we've become. We are family Az," that was an understatement. In Azriel's mind, Cassian and Rhysand were his brothers for far longer than that, Rhys' mother had made sure of it, but Mor, she was _something special_ to all three of them. At least he can put it like that.

In a Mor-like fashion she hit the problem on the head. "Does it have to do with Tamlin's little sister?"

"Rhys told you."

She didn't deny it, "he's worried. We all are. We know when you are hurting Az. I just wanted to know... _why?"_

Azriel didn't want to explore this new part of himself, but something told him he needed it. He needed to let her fix the missing pieces together to understand why he felt as if his heart had been ripped from his chest, and his wings always seeming to tuck in rather than spread. It was physical. It was spiritual, it was an _unknown_ he had little experience with.

"I don't even know myself." Azriel was honest, "It's hard to explain."

"Well, could you try?" Mor illuminated, "I'm not pushing you Az. I only respect you," she used his words back at him, "so you can tell as a friend."

Of course she added the last part, very vocal of that part of their relationship. He still came across a feeling of true happiness with Mor, it was tempered now by a deeper understanding, and him talking about his feelings was the least he could do with a female like the daring Morrigan.

He tried. "She would have been safer here." Azriel said for the first time since returning home. "I respect Rhysand's reasoning that her presence here would have started a War, and surely more unrest between our Courts, but I still believe we could have helped her, that she would happier here…" there was so much selfish need in his voice that Azriel reigned it in. "I don't sleep anymore." He waved a hand and the glamour surrounding his eyes gave way to two dark bags under his eyes.

Mor's face turned graver. _"Oh Azriel."_

"I didn't say it so you could pity me." Azriel continued, once the floodgates were opened, they really did open. "I feel as if I am to blame if anything would happen to her. That it's my duty to make sure she…" _there it was again_ , this unspoken connection of protecting the small Fae female that could be crushed with one touch from her potentially sadistic brother, be used for someone else's gain, or perhaps in the worse of his nightmares, her maiden head sold to the highest bidder, and he would be forced to watch.

"It sounds like you care for her." Mor dared to whisper, coming up right beside him. "You saw a bit of me in her, didn't you?"

 _How did she know?_ Azriel had no idea, but nodded, only adding, "and maybe not so much you Mor, but perhaps me too." Her clenched his forever scarred hands, "I wanted someone to be there to protect me too, and this time I had no excuse not to help her. I was going to…" he bit back the guilt, "I was going to end her life for revenge for Selene and Nyx." He breathed deeply, calming himself, not focused on Mor's horrified expression, "but Rhys gave me a different path, and I…" he fought himself, and Mor was giving him the time to. "And I was tempted down a darker path, and I almost did."

 _"But you didn't take it-"_

"I almost did." He repeated, for some reason he stood up to put some space between the too good Mor, "and when I didn't take her life, something clicked into place Mor. I don't what it was, but I knew my calling, I found peace in it."

 _"You did?"_

"Yes." Azriel nodded in solemn reply.

"What is it?" Mor seemed to be on edge for some reason as he regarded her once more. Azriel looked over to her, connecting with her soft yet warm brown eyes, and that face he had admired for so long changed under his assured gaze.

Azriel gave her a kind smile. "I was born to protect people like her."

* * *

 _ **What do you think of this chapter?**_

 _ **Too short? What would you like to see in Kianna's :)**_

 _ **Have a wonderful week my lovely ones,**_

 _ **Odeveca**_


	10. Light

**Chapter 10: Light**

* * *

 **KIANNA**

Those left alive were repairing the Manor and carrying the cold bloating corpses from the places they had fallen.

As the laymen undertakers carried the bodies to their final resting place, they were soiling the ground with blood, shit, and urine. They were walking and carrying in solemn procession to several ditches dug outside the fields of ripening apple, orange, and grape, throwing the bodies in one after the other. The pieces found elsewhere from the intact corpses; torn pieces of hands, arms, legs, decapitated heads with lolling tongues and eyes bulged and malformed, were thrown into the massive bonfire. The tendrils of flame were dancing, licking the offered flesh to blackened bone, and it gave off an angry orange glow to the night. The fire leaving only smoke of sickly-sweet smell akin to that of burning meat. It permeated and fouled the air.

Kianna remembered the once overwhelming and blooming citrus trees; home to buzzing bees and the singing flocks of colorful birds were all gone now, and now it did nothing to hide the smell of decay.

Kianna watched hungrily the plentiful fruit, squash, carrots, and some barrels of lettuce (that had yet to be shipped off) that were handed out to feed the remaining humans and sentinels that were told to dig deep into the earth for a massive grave. The salvageable produce was their only meals since many of the male sentinels and able-bodied slaves were busy following Tamlin's orders to repair and salvage anything they could get to. During more peaceful times, the sentinels had hunted and foraged for the hungry mouths that were not strong enough to carry the dead or go hunting themselves, but a High Lord's order was law.

Kianna saw with her own eyes how disciplined and laborious the sentinels were once ordered to do more than manage and hunt their Lord's lands.

Her eyes were pulled further on.

Off in the distance, surrounding a different type of bonfire, Aunt Maris was raising her arms with the High Priestess of the Spring Court and her green hooded acolytes. In a circle of communion around the sacred fire, they were praying hymns of peace and forgiveness to the gods and goddesses of the wind, earth, and sky. Nameless gods, that had protected them since the Dawn Age. Ianthe and her sisters were following in their mother's display of loyal Fae Faith to the Mother, to whom they prayed to now, their voices rising over the weeping and heaviness of it all,

 _Cauldron save you. Mother hold you._

 _Pass through the gates and smell that immortal land of milk and honey._

 _Fear no evil. Feel no pain._

 _Go, and enter eternity._

"Go, and enter eternity," Kianna repeated their sacred words, wrinkling her nose, and then pinching it entirely when the wind changed, for the dark billows of smoke were coming her way, and seemed to become too much.

They were moved beyond the smoke.

They were sent to the tree-line, having a front row seat to the fallen, and how their bones would be a testament of bad blood with the Night Court forevermore.

"Azriel." She muttered looking at what was left of his High Lord's hatred and vengeance, the grave itself was deeper than any ditch Kianna had seen. "I miss you, and hope you made it home safe."

Kianna had only known him a few hours, but they were a thousand moments of gratitude between them and now. Her brother had roared at the mention of the Night Court and the _Illyrian dogs_ , and that was all the guarantee she needed to know Azriel would never be welcomed back. Despite what her people thought, the Illyrian warrior had proved his loyalty to her by saving her when she could never do the same for him.

Tamlin would murder Azriel on the spot.

She remembered his kind grey eyes, his comforting hand upon her head, stroking the painful throb from crying and thinking too much. All the ways this night could have gone better. In a world where Azriel would be _thanked_ by her brother instead of killed. "I pray you and your people made it safely away. That you are safe." She closed her eyes and prayed to the Mother as her Aunt had asked her to do. "May we meet again one day."

 _"Kianna? Begonia?"_ Her Aunt came over to where Begonia and she were sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree.

"Eat little ones, it won't be long now, we will have a roof soon enough, and beds to sleep, don't you worry," offering them more apples in the meantime, "we will get through this." Instead of agreeing they bit into the delicious apples viciously, as if they had waited years to eat instead of hours to eat again. Ianthe and Zinnia, as well as a few mothers, young females, and surviving human women passed out food amongst them the huddled crowds. Sharing meals amongst the fearful company brought a sense of timid peace amongst the Fae and human slaves.

Kianna was glad she wasn't alone in watching this nightmare.

Being separated from Tamlin was hard enough, and her heart fluttered to only catch glimpses of her brother amongst the following and guarding sentinels.

His retinue was followed by sharp commands from the Captain of the Guard and their appalled Uncle Vanir; his pristine white robes marred from the mud and his soft hands tainted from the bloody work he was made to do like the rest. Nevertheless, what her noble Uncle must be going through, Tamlin seemed so different from before, he stood a bit straighter when speaking with the Captain, and not a step seemed unsure as he too worked beside the many.

Kianna watched longingly, wanting to walk beside him, even when her small steps would not keep up with his lightening pace. Instead of wanting, she is imagining his warm arms around her once more, comforting her was the first time she could breathe without hurting.

Kianna's eyes found Ianthe and Zinnia handing out blankets to the crowds. She had her female cousins with her now, especially Begonia, whom had become her welcome shadow.

"When all this is over we will go to the Great Lake." She started a conversation with her. "Your sisters," Begonia had been watching Ianthe and Zinnia work too, her eyes seemed to grow warmer at the mention of them, "could take us after all the work they have finished. Do you think they would say yes?"

Begonia nodded.

A human slave came to offer them bread, Kianna smiled to her and thanked her, while her cousin eyed the woman as if she was a dangerous animal. She forgot that there were no humans allowed into Vallahan, and that she must never have met one before now. Kianna wagered to Begonia when they were once again alone, "Don't worry we will be safe now, and maybe Tamlin would agree to come with us too. He always liked swimming, maybe he could teach us?"

Kianna had begun sharing stories of how the Great Lake lay to the North of the Manor, and how her older brothers would go hunting in the southern forest, knowing that Begonia's silence was more fear of the dead and humans rather being apathetic for her murdered family members. "I miss my family very much Begonia," she opened to her. "I know my brother does too, that is why he won't talk about it. It hurts him too much," she thought as much, "we are all that is left, we must be strong for our parent's memory, now more than ever," her cousin nodded as if she understood the aching pain.

After a few brave moments, they walked forward and investigated the massive grave of the dead.

She searched for a familiar human face, and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Willow is not in there," Kianna whispered to her little cousin Begonia, breaking the horrible silence once more, daring her Aunt to find them and demand they sit back on the log, and say their prayers instead of chattering like pixies.

 _"Who was Willow?"_

She had not expected Begonia to even ask. Her voice was small and scared, too weak-spirited for conversations of death and decay.

Kianna explained to her anyways, "My mother's servant, she came to us two years ago." _My Mother._ She had yet to see her mother's body, let alone her brothers or father. She wondered if Tamlin would allow her that. It felt wrong not to say goodbye, it made her feel sick to be left with nothing of them. Kianna went on anyway, "You know, I loved Willow like my mother." Kianna said proudly, "I'm glad they couldn't find her, perhaps she made it out, perhaps she got far away from here."

Begonia did not make mention of Willow again, or to her Vallahan Mother and noble sisters. Kianna was at least grateful for that. It would be frowned upon for a _faeling_ child to call a human slave her mother. Some would even say it would bring a bad omen upon the High Lord's name, and the future generations born. Kianna could care less about that.

"I hope she found a better home," she said freely, looking into the massive pit of both Fae and human alike. "I hope she's happy."

* * *

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

* * *

"Come here." Tamlin lifted Kianna up from the log and carried her in the direction of the Manor. She grabbed his shoulders tight as he carried her away from Begonia, and into the parting crowd of watchers. The land had not changed, the air still ghastly, but she felt stronger now that her brother had his full attention on her. "I got you Kianna."

"I know." She whispered back, closing her eyes for only a moment to feel the imaginary bond that was growing between them. It was fragile and new, but still there.

Her legs hugged his ribcage as one of his large arms carried her forward. She looked back at the assembled High Fae, loyal sentinels, her Aunt and Uncle, her cousins, and even the High Priestess herself. The woman scared Kianna, her arms still raised, eyes shut tight, and mouth humming an ancient chant that sounded more animal than words.

"Leave us." Tamlin's voice carried, "this is something we must do alone." Whatever it was they were about to do; the gathered Fae did not follow.

Tamlin carried her to the Manor, it was no longer smoking, but the fire had done its work. She saw slaves bowing as they worked to clean and restore what they could, and then less as they walked deeper and deeper into the hurricane of rooms, and at last finding the staircase that led to the floors beneath the ground.

 _"Why?"_

"You'll see," he muttered as he took the first step down.

She gripped him tighter than ever before as they descended into the darkness, she couldn't see, but she trusted her brother to, at the end of the hallway stood a priestess dressed in all white. Kianna froze. As they neared her, she was surprised to see that under the hood of her robe, her mouth sewn shut, and her eyelids peeled away for skull-like looking eyes. She looked away from her, but Tamlin did not.

"Priestess, have you finished?"

She must have said yes, because after three claps from the white-robbed Priestess, five more exited, all as frightening as the one Tamlin was exchanging silent words with, and the oddly white robbed Fae females exited the way they had come.

"An hour will be enough time for us, we will not be disturbed," Tamlin said to the leader, and then she too left.

After the last steps could be heard going up the steps, Tamlin finally put Kianna down to her feet, she felt giddy and terrible for some reason, and he knelt to unleash his very serious green eyes on her.

"If it gets too much for you Kianna, we will leave alright? We don't have to stay here." When she didn't nod he repeated himself.

"Alright." Kianna repeated after him.

He held her hand and walked into the candle-lit storeroom of the basement. It did not take her long to see the reason why Tamlin, the white-robbed undertakers, and even the High Fae seemed to reek of sadness for this moment.

The room was filled with four tables, and four bodies, all drape with white cloth, and prepared for them she gathered with scents of blooming white magnolias and rich smoking herbs that left a feeling of rejuvenation and peace in Kianna's nose. Still she felt elation and that same sick feeling at the sight of the covered bodies waiting for them, as if she could pull the sheet off, and her parents and brothers would rise to meet her as if this had all been a game.

"It's them,"- she pulled Tamlin closer to them, she had to truly pull him, and then gave up when he let her go to see for herself.

"It's Mother," she mumbled walking forward alone, unafraid for some reason, and pulling the white sheet lower to get a look at her face. "Mother."

Kianna gasped.

She had not expected her mother to be so white. As if the blood had been leeched from her, and left a sunken face, sewed neck as if she had been…. And then it dawned on Kianna, slowly, like a painful bee sting, only for her to welt over all over, to itch and make them worse, and there was nothing she could do to stop it from taking over all her senses.

"They did this"- _they_ had cut her neck, made her mother choke on her own blood. A clean slice it may be, that the white-robbed priestesses had sewn for her, but they had stolen her mother, _the baby!_ Kianna tore the entire sheet off and Tamlin made a noise as if it killed him to watch.

The baby-bump was prominent against her mother's midsection, untampered with, and it made it more worse to imagine that her baby sister or brother would be forever trapped there. Kianna dared to touch it and when her hand made contact all she felt was hard and cold. _Dead._ Her mother was dead, the baby dead, and if she would pull the sheets away she should find the same and worse for her brothers and father.

She turned to Tamlin to see tears leaking down his shut eyes. He could not look at their mother, "Tamlin," she cried to him, tasting the tears that seemed to have fallen at seeing him so, he came to her in an instant holding her to his side, "Mother." He nodded, and that is when she knew Tamlin knew just as well how painful it was to see her so, "why did they hurt her?"

"It was our fault Kianna." He said so furiously, she was sure his talons would rip into her hair, but they didn't, " _this was all my fault._ " He said in a voice she had never heard before. Guilty. He felt guilty. "This was never about you and Mother. It never should have happened like this."

"Why did it happen in the first place?" She shamed him, couldn't help shaming him when he was the only one left. "Why did they do this to us in the first place?"

Tamlin's eyes closed again, tormented with something, and as if looking at her made it worse. He knelt once more before her, giving his words everything he had. "I am to blame." He opened his eyes to confront her, holding both her hands in his. Tethering her to him. "But may these words bring you some peace, I'll give you everything I have, I'll defend you, I'll give you everything I know, and I promise," he gave her without a second thought, "I promise I will do better."

They shared a warm glance with one another, and when it became too much Kianna looked back at her mother and the baby, focusing on their two souls, of the hope and love that had went into the news of the baby, and the future that was lost.

She boldly rested her hand on the baby-bump, and she could feel Tamlin getting close enough that she could feel his chest behind her.

Her voice shaky as she repeated Aunt Maris' sacred words, "Let us pray."

 _"Cauldron save you. Mother hold you._

 _Pass through the gates and smell that immortal land of milk and honey._

 _Fear no evil. Feel no pain._

 _Go, and enter eternity."_

When the child's prayer ended, Tamlin become solemn behind her, his eyes closed as if he was silently praying his own prayer to _The Mother._ His breaths seemed steady against her back, and he petted her head once more. Despite the place and time, he was calm under her praying words, and Kianna took a deep breath too, releasing whatever vengeance and fury she held for the Night Court. She knew her mother would be in the best of places, and one day they would be there with her too.

Tamlin's words tickled her ears. "Thank you, Kianna."

She nodded minutely to him and decided this was the moment to lift her hand to put the sheet back over her mother. She was finished with looking at her mother's corpse, and when she tried to do so, her hand did not seem to move with her arm.

Kianna cocked her head to the side at the odd moment. She tried moving her hand again, and it did not budge. She gave up on her peace entirely, and tried pulling her hand entirely away from her mother. When it did not seem to obey her mental command, she panicked, pulling harder and yet… _her hand was stuck in place!_

"Tamlin! My hand!"

He looked up to see his sister in distress, "Kianna? What is wrong?"

"I can't move my hand, it's stuck to Mother," Tamlin did not get the chance to intervene because a force stronger and older than them both seemed to channel into Kianna.

He roared at it, "What is that!"

"I don't know!"

Whatever it was it glowed with unregulated energy, it awoke in every bone, muscle, and nerve in Kianna's body, flowing through the connection of her outstretched arm, into her hand, coming through the tips of her fingers, and leaking into the lifeless body of her Mother, and even further on into the vessel that rested safely inside of her.

"You have to stop it!" Tamlin was pushed back to try to reach her, fighting the force, his High Fae power unleashed too as he tucked his talons into the soil, and yet he still could not reach her.

"I can't!" She whimpered as it seemed to notice her retaliation, breaking down all the walls in her mind, "Tamlin!"

The force of light was flooding the room with its energy, leaving no darkness safe, and Kianna felt as if her brain would burst through her skull as it gave her all its unwanted and alien-like attention.

For painful seconds, all she knew was the absence of darkness.

The power of it became so great it was like concentrated thunder without sound, strong enough to keep even Tamlin at bay, a High Lord's magic at bay, taking in every particle of air right into the focus on her hand, moving into one compact space inside her mother, and when it became too much, the room exploded into pure light.

* * *

 _ **I hope this chapter was entertaining as it was writing it!**_

 _ **Love you all, tell me what you think of Kianna's chapter, and what you would like to see in Azriel's chapter,**_

 _ **as always I hope you guys are having a wonderful day,**_

 _ **Love**_

 _ **Odeveca**_


	11. Celebration

**Chapter 11: Celebration**

* * *

 **AZRIEL**

The winter solstice was upon them.

Small fat drops of snow were falling softly from the sky. It peppered Azriel's dark hair.

To those that marked the seasons, this gentle formation of snow clouds meant they were in the season of wearing heavy jackets to many of the Fae snow-covered cities. Illyrians were not welcome everywhere, and instead of the glamour Rhys would place to mask their obvious Illyrian features, he suggested they wear jackets like all the rest of their party.

"I know Illyrians can still feel the cold," Mor pulled a sweet smile on him when she caught the goosebumps that ran up his arms, she rubbed one of his forearms, raising one of her delicate eyebrows, "don't lie to me Azriel," and Azriel forgot the reason why he was silently brooding in the first place.

He walked forward with Rhys, Mor, and Cassian and felt the unbearable weight once more.

 _Oh, that's right_ , he moaned in his mind _, I hate feeling like this_.

Azriel's jacket felt as if it was suffocating his wings with black suede. It made him feel as if he was trying to stuff them back into his shoulders, rejecting his Illyrian side. Another more practical side of him knew, whatever he was feeling, it was not important, his discretion was necessary to follow Rhys like _The Shadow_ they called him.

In that matter, Rhysand took his High Lord duties very seriously.

The past months he was finishing off late night meetings with the remaining grumbles of nobles, touring the Illyrian war-camps (to remind them of the Night Court's authority), and even making time to visit the orphanages and poor houses of Velaris. Rhys did not do things in halves. He had finished their tour by surprising them with a visit to the Hewn City. It was beneath that mountain that they went to see to it's poor, crippled, and elderly as his late Mother had done during their winter family traditions.

After they left the Court of Nightmares, they returned once more to the orphanages of Velaris, and a final round to the southern one. Mor seemed to be filled with energy and emotion, she spoke up as they took a leisure stroll to the last orphanage, stopping at some vendors for each of their Inner Circle to _discretely_ buy winter season gifts for one another, "Selene would be proud of you Rhys. For keeping this tradition alive."

"I sure hope she would be," Rhys patted the Mor's hand on his bicep when she returned to him, her coin purse depleted, and her bags heavier with gifts. Their High Lord breathed in the biting cold air as if it was something sweet, "she would have loved to have seen us like this."

"You're right about that Rhys." Naturally, Morrigan stood beside him, all she wanted to do was comfort Rhys. "I hope you don't mind if I give them presents that I already bought," Rhys face nodded slowly as if he had already known. "I just don't want to give them to anyone else. I am so happy you agree."

"My sister and mother would have liked that." Rhys bowed his head for them, "thank you Mor."

"That's what family is for." She repeated the heart-warming phrase while holding his arm. She was the expert at knowing what to say, and she came with a charming smile when the people of Velaris wanted to congratulate their newly anointed High Lord.

"Here let me take this. I'll carry them while you do your thing," Cassian took her bags, so she could better distract the audience when the children become overly excited to see Rhys amongst them and seemed to not understand the meaning of enough.

"Thank you, Cass," she winked at Azriel's smug brother, and Cassian looked over at him, gloating, and playfully winking back at a glaring Azriel.

He left Cassian's side, and got out of the crowd itself.

The shadowsinger took to the less inhabited part of the street, leaning up against a wall, and pretending not to be looking for would be High Lord assassins. To Azriel, it was a wonder how much patience Rhys had for small talk and meaningless chatter of the weather, mining business, farming, and sailing business of the past months.

 _It's not hard to listen, they make me feel so at home here_ , Rhys mind brushed his when his shadows murmured some unease at the crowd growing around Rhysand. _They will not attack me Az. Don't worry, calm brother._

Azriel had to remind himself repeatedly as they stuck their hands out to touch him, Rhys allowing it, _they will not harm Rhys_ , he repeated for himself. _They will not harm Rhys, they just want to meet him._

 _Ah my shadowsinger, what have I told you? Never lose your cautious nature,_ the dark shadows awoke curling around his shoulders, taking their natural path around the ridge of his clavicles, and for some reason the sight of Rhys surrounded by civilians left them uneasy too, _the time will come when you will have need of your cautious nature._

 **Not in Velaris** , Azriel spoke back to the shadows. **Not so soon after Selene, Nyx, and even the High Lord.**

His shadows did not answer. They flickered for a moment and went back to sleep.

 **You bastards.**

 _But this is Velaris_ , Azriel reminded himself.

He didn't always need the shadow's affirmation to know the truth. To anyone's eye Velaris had only excitement and respect instead of the fear and loathing for Rhys' like other cities seemed to harbor for him and his extended family.

Watching Rhys bend down to speak to a small Fae child, Azriel had never noticed it until now.

Being a shadowsinger for Rhys was very different from being a shadowsinger for his father. Rhysand had a gentle hand, and Azriel felt lost amongst the onlookers. He knew he should not feel so, not after years of orders for bloodshed at his father's command, and yet he could not understand why he could not just be happy that this High Lord's rule would be a better one.

Someone came to break his attention. "Lighten up Az, it's Velaris, we can catch some drinks after Rhys is finished, meet up with a few of my friends, a certain _lady friend_ has her eye out for you-" Cassian said as if he could forget the certain lady friend that he was mentioning.

"I don't know who you're talking about."

"Liar," Cassian smirked, "I caught you once with her."

"It wasn't me." Azriel bit right back. _It wasn't him anymore_ , he reminded himself.

"Liar!" Cassian looked as if he was winning.

It reminded him of the horny female. The previous months Azriel had been bombarded with plays by a raven-haired temptress that must have been provoked by Cassian to get to know his shadowsinger brother intimately. She was unrelenting in her chase, even showed up at his house one time.

She wanted to congratulate him on the peace their High Lord had made final in the Night Court. For those that had yet to hear, the Great War was coming to an end, the Spring Court had pulled out from Hybern, humans slaves freed, and the Velaris clubs were a place of celebration and getting wasted until you could no longer feel your face.

Azriel felt less needed by Rhys' side due to peaceful declarations amongst Prythian's High Lords. He had not known a time without War with the humans or Hybern, and now that it was over, it was as Azriel said before, _he felt lost._

He felt lost most of all in the celebratory nightclubs.

Despite that new development, Azriel felt comfortably in the streets of Velaris, with his friends and his wards Nuala and Cerridwen, and even if Kianna seemed farther away from him as time shifted like sand under his feet. The little Fae Lady seemed to be just the skin and bone of a fading memory, one he latched onto most nights for some tormented reason.

"I think I will go home Cass, perhaps another night," Azriel left it in the air.

He took none of it. "Don't puss out you big baby!" Cassian grabbed him by the neck and pulled him into bicep, digging his fist into his head and scrapping his scalp with his knuckles. "Did you lose your balls in the Spring Court or something, huh? What the fuck is the matter with you?"

He wasn't going to respond to that, but when Cassian kicked Azriel's ass with the back of his foot, the shadowsinger had enough of this public embarrassment. _"What the fuck is the matter with you?"_ Azriel bit back, pushing on the snake constricting bicep cutting the oxygen to his brain. "Why the hell are you being an asshole to me?"

"About the time that you decided to be a sore ass. Tell me what is wrong with you!"

Azriel gritted out, feeling his face becoming red. "I am fine! How many times do you I have to tell you! _Bastard_."

"Until I start to believe you, _bastard boy_ ," Azriel squirmed harder at that horrible name, roaring at Cassian to let him go when his vision got white spots.

"Fine you big baby!"

Azriel got out of his hold, but he knew Cassian had let him get out of it. His heart was not in fighting either, especially the play fighting his brother enjoyed.

"I got you big baby." The Bastard had the biggest smile he had seen in a long time, and the brooding shadowsinger was not in the mood for this.

Azriel felt tired of repeating himself. "I've told you a hundred times. What am I going to have to do for you to stop bothering me?"

"I'll never stop bothering you brother," there was a bit of seriousness in his tone. As if it was his choice to keep finding out what bothered him. It was nice to know that he cared on a deeper level, that this was not all just a way for him to _keep busting his balls._

"I know," Azriel shrugged the heavy emotions Cassian was sending his way. "I know you do Cass."

"Am I interrupting something?" Rhys came up to them, that boyish smirk Azriel had never thought he would see, sealed on his lips. "I swear, just a few more minutes and I would have to walk Azriel down the aisle. How did you get him all wound up like this Cassian?"

"What can I say?" He boasted for some reason, "Azriel just can't get enough of me," Cassian tried to make a pass at slapping the shadowsinger's ass, and Azriel leapt away, back to his perpetual brooding.

"Oh, leave him alone," Mor noticed what was happening, and Azriel bit back the groan at having to be rescued by the female he dreamed of rescuing, "never mind what you boys fight about, look who decided to come along Az?" His eyes went down to her clasping hands with his silent twin wards.

Azriel's frown grew, when they looked up at him with sheepish smiles, and those bright amber eyes in dark faces were downright pleading with him to let them stay.

 _They disobeyed you shadowsinger._ Their shadows shrunk back in the presence of his own. He held back the fatherly reprimand that was tempted to come out of his mouth.

After a moment, he gave in. "I thought I told you both to wait for me to get home," Azriel found his voice, no longer worried about his ever-falling pride to Cassian and Rhys. "I already made plans for us to go out later, you both know that."

"I invited them," Mor spoke up for them both, and his twin wards, Cerridwen and Nuala, nestled their guilty heads into Mor's sides, pleased with the lovely Lady's invitation, but awaiting his approval as their keeper. For a selfish moment he thought he would go home with them, prove that it was not right to disobey his rules, but then he was reminded of the celebrations all over Velaris, and how the twins had wanted to get out since the day before.

"Very well," Azriel nodded, "come with us. Mind your manners and come to me if you need..." Devious grins broke across their faces, and they ran into the crowd of orphanage's children before hearing him out. Perhaps they were eager to meet some of the friends they had made on their last outing this way of Velaris, and once again he was lost on how to be a guardian to them.

"That was nice of you Az," Mor took his arm in account that Rhys and Cassian had found a stall with gem encrusted swords and daggers. "You are doing a wonderful job with them."

"I don't have enough time to go places with them," Azriel spoke up, sullen for that fact alone when it came to Naula and Cerridwen's happiness, "they deserve better than me."

"Then I guess we will all have to pitch in," Mor pinched his arm playfully. "It's no use just watching you get all anxious like this, we should help each other."

"Now that is a good idea." Azriel couldn't help the tiniest of smirks when Mor squealed at his agreement to her proposal, she had been hoping for this.

"Oh, thank you Azriel, thank you, you won't regret this. I will make sure Cassian will behave himself, but I know Rhys will be just the happiest, he loves children, didn't you see how he just bloomed when the little"-

Azriel's shadows awoke for some reason.

His eyes picked up and away from Mor's lively face to the crowded street, and to the hidden eyes that he could feel latched onto his person. He didn't notice it at first, but when he saw whom was watching all his muscles froze and sprung upon those _furious green little eyes._

"Az? What is it? What's wrong?"

Azriel detached himself from Mor, "excuse me, I have to"-

He was already stalking through the crowd, going straight to where Kianna stared so angrily at him. _What did I do?_ Azriel could not find the answer. Perhaps if he asked her, asked what had made him so, it would stop the fist that had curled itself around his thrumming heart.

A group of chittering children got in the way between him and her smaller person, and he pushed past them to get to her. His fingers grasping for the space between them.

It was all for naught, Kianna was gone in a second.

Only the empty space where she was once standing remained. He spun in a full circle searching amongst the happy faces, finding not even one looking back with the face he been trying to run to. She had disappeared, winnowed perhaps, but he was torn over how such a small faeling was able to winnow so efficiently, and first how she had entered Velaris in the first place.

It left him far more worried than before. _"Kianna?"_

"Azriel," Mor had followed him, she was breathless, "who was it?" Right behind her came Rhys and Cassian, both wearing scowls, hands on their hidden blades, as if they half expected him to attack or save someone from some terrible fate.

 _What is wrong Az?_ Rhys touched his mind.

"Nothing." Azriel made his mind an impenetrable wall. "Nothing at all."

* * *

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

* * *

He was not able to keep away.

"Fuck it." One of the colder winter mornings he just left. Without telling Mor, and especially not Rhys or Cassian. He settled the twins at the House of Wind, in one of the guest bedrooms when sleep was still heavy over them, and to sate his need to protect them while he was away. It would be easier for them to reach Mor here if they woke and needed someone, as the twins put it, Mor was their _new Lady mother,_ and all three females had but all become inseparable in the past weeks. To the terror of Azriel that had become the focus of their giggles and simple pranks.

Azriel was still getting sap out of his bed.

Whatever was growing between Mor and his wards, he was glad for it. They would be fine without him gone, and that was incentive enough for him to set out across Prythian once more.

Azriel kept Rhys' glamour over himself as he stayed perched in the great Oak tree that had haunted his dreams, looking through magicked lenses at the reconstructed Manor house and the abundantly absent human slaves that he expected to still see harvesting the lands of the Spring Court. Alas, the reports had been right. Tamlin was a different High Lord than his own beast of a father.

Azriel rubbed his lips of the sweat that puddled there, _hopefully that was good news for Kianna._

He lifted the far-seeing lenses that Cass had given him from the Day Court, they aided his eyes to see farther, and once he wiped his brows he could see a clearer vision, searching for any signs in the heat of spring.

 _Cauldron balls, it's hot_. Even in winter this was a place of warmth and sun. Among the sun's rays, he narrowed his eyes in search for anything that could put his mind at ease. What he could see was that in the place of human slaves, lesser Fae had been brought into the fields to pluck, package, and export the fields of plenty. There were three very large mud circles to the northern part of the Manor house, and he wondered if those were those were the mass graves of both Fae and human his spies had whispered of.

Azriel was surprised that the High Fae of Tamlin's Court had not spit upon being buried with those they deemed less worthy, and still his shadows could not pick any distrust or trouble. There seemed to only a tired peace had settled over the Spring Court, and he wiped his sweaty brow as he waited for any news, the jacket he still wore was like a heavy rag of sweat across his back, but he stifled back the weakness with his resolve to see Kianna safe.

He needed to know.

Azriel tried to reach out to the memory of her, of her angered green little eyes, her wild golden curls, and her courage to go back to her brother even when he offered her a way out. Azriel remembered her clinging to him, asking him to stay when he knew it would only spell trouble for her… he brought the lenses up for a final time, perhaps he could get a closer look. Perhaps there was a tree-line down-wind to the Manor House, and he cursed when he could not find it.

"Azriel."

He looked down at the base of the Oak Tree, and there she was.

"Azriel," she repeated his name, hugging the tree, and her shining green eyes, only happiness at finding out it was him, "you're here!" Her grin had no deviousness or loveliness in it, only appreciation for seeing him safe and here. She had grown in the three months he had not seen her, she was half-an inch taller, and her hair went down to the small of her back making it seem like she was more hair than girl.

"Kianna," he felt something flicker around his wings when he said her name, and he jumped down without a single thought to his safety, his wings trying to open against the constrictive jacket, but groaning as he rolled on them to break his impact.

"Ow." That hurt.

He soon forgot his pain at the sight of Kianna sprinting at him. Her shriek of delight was swallowed when she jumped on him as he was trying to get up, "Azriel! Azriel! It is you! I knew you would come back!"

He held her and closed his eyes to enjoy the moment of her freely enjoying his company. So she didn't think him a monster. His nightmares would be better after this, he whispered into her hair, "I had to know you were safe. I felt as if you were trying to reach me, that you were angry with me"-

"Angry?" Her brows furrowed as she leaned back to look at his face, her scrunched nose and furrowed brows meant she had no idea what he meant. "Why would I be angry at you?"

"No reason." Azriel felt silly, "tell me, what has happened here since I have been away? What of Tamlin? What has he planned for you?"

"Oh that, he's just being Tam," she rolled her eyes in a childish antic that he had not even seen in Cerridwen or Nuala. Both of his wards were too preoccupied and hesitant with his shadows to see the concern that laced his every word.

"Tam?" He was pleasantly surprised with this new development, "Has he been kind to you?"

"Of course, he's very nice, especially when he wants me to behave, and so I guess I listen to him," she delivered the words he needed, as if she had trusted her brother's character from the start. He felt a bit of frustration at her brushing Tamlin's blood-soaked past, but the shadowsinger was unsure how much she knew, and how much he was willing to explain of why the Night and Spring Courts could never find apology and forgiveness with one another.

He found a safer topic. "Do you still feel alone?" That had bothered him the most when he had left her, "have your family made you feel safe..."

"Oh they have." She rubbed at his hands, unafraid at the roughness of them, and that was all the incentive she needed, "it's kind of a long story."

"We have time." Azriel looked back to the Manor surprised to see none had noticed her absence.

Kianna jumped right into her story.

Her delighted face meant to world to him, but he reigned his happiness at the mention of being visited and having conversations with her dead mother, and on a more dangerous note, a personal visit from Hybern to give condolences to her High Lord brother.

Azriel's skin prickled at the mention of the pack of Hybern nobles returning soon to help smooth the unease in her brother's radical changes in their Court, such as freeing all human slaves, sending them South to the villages of their people, and of his proposal to the six High Lord's to build a Wall that would separate a Fae Prythian from their human world...

* * *

 **Did you enjoy Azriel's POV? Tell me what you guys would love to see in this story,**

 **as always you have all my love, and appreciation for reviewing and reading this story,**

 **have a wonderful rest of the week,**

 **Odeveca**


	12. Blessed Be

**Chapter 12: Blessed Be**

* * *

 **KIANNA**

In one of more exquisite guest bedrooms of the Manor, Kianna and Begonia both watched as twin plump bodies fed on the perk round breasts of a Fae Mother. Their naked little bodies wriggled and squirmed around her practiced arms as she held them close and tight.

"You are very good at this," Ianthe was right over the Mother's shoulder, unabashed at the private sight, her shining blue eyes wide and in awe of the precious and relatively unseen moments in a Fae's young life. "What are you going to name her?"

"Camellia," said the Fae mother, both breasts exposed, and two twinkling souls of _faelings_ , so soft, and too fragile to even exist, and yet they did as they suckled so hungrily. "The firstborn is named Cassia, and so I thought if fitting they both be of the same family." Ianthe and Zinnia made sounds of approval, many females born in the Spring Court were given flower names, and female or male twins usually had names that reflected the other.

Except they weren't twins.

Kianna leaned closer, her eyes drawn not to the dark haired one that matched it's mother, but the one with the golden hair, the one that she shared everything with. "Why did you name her that?" Her little voice broke the peace the Mother had at feeding the faux twin babes, it tempted anger that Kianna did not know she had inside of herself, "why didn't you name her after my family's name? She should be named after us?"

"Kianna," Ianthe pounced on her, hands pushing down and away from her baby sister, "it was your brother's wish that she be given to Cydonia," the very Mother gave her a look that bordered on anxious dread, she had been sworn to silence, and Kianna could not see why it was so important in the first place. Ianthe seemed to see this, "it is very important that people don't get the wrong idea and confuse an already fixed arrangement. Camellia is to be with Cydonia now, she will be well taken care of. She has been a Mother before."

"But _she is_ my little sister," Kianna put it straight, upset that her brother ever decided this in the first place, "she belongs to me and my brother."

"She belongs to no one," Zinnia was there too, protective of the secret that seemed so wrong to Kianna, "she is _all_ of our little sister. We will have to share her, in Vallahan we share all the little ones so none feel left out. Don't worry cousin, we will watch out for her."

"I don't want to share her," Kianna said, "I can learn to do it myself."

Ianthe made a sound like a cat being stepped on, "Listen Kianna, this is not a conversation, these are your brother's orders. We have to obey if you want to live here, you don't want your brother to send you away?"

"He'll send you away before he ever sends me away," she knew that for a fact.

Ianthe found her insolence overwhelming and flared her hands as if it was all too much. Zinnia looked at Kianna as if she was the dirt on their shoe. "Didn't you ever learn to share Kianna?"

"My mother taught me," Kianna said boldly, knowing that any mention of her mother, _the Lady of the Manor,_ as some of the faelings joked haunted the grounds on occasion, would stop the conversation cold, and it did, it shut them up from even debating the contrary.

Her little sister yawned against the Mother's breast, unaware of when she opened her eyes, they gleamed with the same bright gold light that had harnessed from Kianna.

"Tamlin was very strong to have brought your sister to life," Ianthe went on, looking at her little sister with unrelenting adoration, "blessed be the High Lord's might."

" _Blessed be_ ," Zinnia repeated after her elder sister, and then a timid Begonia whispered it too, ever the little follower.

Kianna refused to say it, her sister seemed stolen for some reason, especially when Tamlin bringing their sister to life was a lie, and that was only argument of why she had to share her sister in the first place. Sharing her just felt wrong. Especially when these privates moments would have been hers and their own mother. Instead their mother fed the worms and ants in the ground now, entombed in the Northern hills, in the piece that had been cut off for her father's tomb, and those of the family that had died during his reign.

 _Your sister will be safe._ The alien power of light pulsed within her, reminding her of it's presence, and it frightened Kianna into behaving.

"Blessed be," she relented the religious words, because perhaps Tamlin was protecting her from the fallout of what the news would bring, and the implications it would mean for her little sister Camellia. Perhaps a secret was better than the greed others would grow when Kianna's newfound power was discovered. She curled her hands back into her armpits, afraid of touching anyone, and most especially the precious newborn she had pulled from the Realms beyond the living world.

* * *

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

* * *

 _Kianna._ Her mother's voice reached her sun warmed daydreams, her fingers awakened and curled in dew grass at the soft timbre of it. She could feel tears come to her closed eyes, because the words were filled with that heartbreaking concern she knew so well. Her voice was so pleasant and warm for someone that had ice cold skin... _Kianna, I must warn you, your life is going to change._

"How?"

Her answer was soft and tender. Like the touch of a gentle hand, like breath on her face before a kiss. _People will ask things of you, expect you to speak and act as I did. It is your burden to bear now, but more importantly it is your path to choose._

"My path?"

 _Yes, my little one, you're life path._ Kianna could smell her breath now, her mother felt so real in this place of half-dreams. _Their control will not last forever, your will is strong enough to know what is right, and it grows stronger around those that care the most for you._

"Azriel," Kianna whispered back.

 _Your brother._ Her mother corrected her, and her voice became more urgent. _Many will try to separate you from Tamlin. Don't let them get the better of you, especially when I won't be there to protect you._

"But you are here Mother." Kianna did not like that the more she listened to her mother she felt more ill with each word. It felt wrong for her mother to use the 'invisible enemy' as a reason for caution, and this rambling sounded a bit like, she asked, "why are you using father's words? Why are you telling me this?"

 _Your brother's mind is too far away from me to reach him. It is up to you Kianna, to tell him these things, remind him, and do not leave his side. Do not leave the Spring Court, promise me._

"I don't know if"-

 _Promise me Kianna._

Kianna opened her eyes and closed them just as fast because of the blinding white light.

She hissed at the vicious memory of it.

 _Suddenly she was back with Tamlin in that very dank basement beneath the Manor. Her hand was still tethered to her mother's corpse, the energy stealing and giving as it fed into…_ a newborn _faeling_ was crying off somewhere in the real world. That same power running through its veins, shining through its eyes. It brought a tremendous excitement and sadness through Kianna, and she was ready to break whatever bond this was with her _very dead mother's rambling._

 _Don't! You must trust me, you are safe Kianna, it will not harm you, do not fear my light little one. It protects you now, but promise me Kianna, you will not leave your home._

"I promise." very slowly she opened them again, braving the light to give a smile. The warmth of the sun increased at what waited for her. Her mother was there, her eyes sparkling for her promise given, her smile a reflection of her own, "Mother." She reached for her grinning face, hoping to feel her for one last time.

The sight of her mother's happiness flickered behind Kianna's eyelids, only to drift off into the High Lord's garden of wild roses and untrimmed hedges, the end to a very emotional dream.

"Mother!" She leaned up from the place that she had taken her nap, her body in a cold sweat from the adrenaline pulsing through her body. "Why did you come to me? Where did you go?"

The wind rushed through the tree above.

She looked up at the nearly fifty-year-old evergreen that grew at the center of the family's garden, the swaying of the tree had rocked her into that that powerful dream. The once strong wind trickled into a faint whistle, it tickled the branches and fluttering leaves, "why did you make me promise you that? Why did you come to warn me?"

The only answer Kianna got was a snore from the Lesser Fae Maid, with blue skin, dark freckles, and darker hair. She was a half-Fae and half sprite named Bridgit. Her presence was expected from the rather persistent order from her brother to watch over them.

As expected, Begonia was not far from her too. Her cousin was still lost to her more pleasant dreams with the soft smile on her innocent lips, and Kianna she couldn't help but frown at her.

They had been separated from the rest of the youthful _faelings_ , and that meant Kianna was separated from the faelings that enjoyed mischievousness and exercise and instead she was stuck with…. _a timid Begonia._ Sure, she liked her cousin, but she was a more a growing frustration rather than a playmate.

The wild blood in her felt like a flightless bird that yearned for open sky and adventure, and Begonia was the anchor that held her down. It was frustrating. The spring air was filled with energy, it called for her to join it, be a part of its healing and change, and the endless hum of work as the sentinels, countryside Fae, and hired Lesser Fae repaired the lands around the newly constructed Manor made her want to go and appraise their work.

Kianna could hear the giggle and play of the Lesser Fae that were tending to the fields of produce. She dared to lean up on an expensively crafted bench and climb up the rest of the hedge to look over and beyond. "Wow."

The view was exciting.

The fields over yonder, that had once been filled with shouts and commands of sentinels to the slower and less graceful bodies of men and woman slaves, were now filled with Fae folk and magical creatures that had once made the forest home but had changed their place of dwelling to be of service to their High Lord's summons.

The High Priestess and her acolytes were helping too, their hymns happier than the death hymns so long ago,

 _Blessed Be the earth when the world was begun._

 _Blessed be the fruit that shines in the sun._

 _Blessed be the rain that brings us life,_

 _And blessed be the stars that brighten the night sky._

Their voices brought on a glorious change.

Instead of the human slaves that would scream instead of giggle when the whip found them, singing and dancing Fae and fairies worked in tandem, and a deep appreciation of the land and people itself. Even with the sun so high in the sky, it did not impede their lively cheer. This sun would have burned and reddened the humans' skin, tiring them out, and she guessed it still would burn them wherever Tamlin had sent them after they had been given their freedom.

"I hope you are with them Willow," she remarked for some reason.

Willow seemed part of another world now after a month without her, and the screaming humans and burning Manor seemed to have fled with her too, a vaulted memory better to be forgotten.

Nevertheless, the past months had a way of bringing life back to the Spring Court, and Tamlin was not a cruel Master to bid it return.

As High Lord, he only asked for half the work the humans had reaped before, and the nobles complained incessantly for refusal to work the Lesser Fae like slaves, for it made their way of living and methods of leisure more impossible when he too asked them to contribute.

"Poor Tam." Tamlin would have _many more_ of these tedious meetings today, and most especially the ambassadors that came the night before would be meeting with him too… "he needs me." Her mother must have meant this when she came to her. Tamlin would need someone that cared for him and be warned of those that tried to separate them as a family. "He needs me to be with him."

That left her with one choice.

"Hey, wake up." Kianna pushed on Begonia to wake her, tired with her mother's worried thoughts and the unease of doing nothing about it, "let's go see my brother, come on, but you have to be quiet, so she doesn't wake up." Kianna pointed at the only person that would stop them from going.

Begonia looked over to a peacefully sleeping Bridgit, her eyes sad at the prospect of leaving her sleeping as they ran off again.

"Come on Beggie before she wakes up. We might get to see your sisters too if we are quite enough. Don't you want to see Ianthe and Zinnia?"

That tempted Begonia enough to forget that they were not to leave Bridgit's side while her parents were busy for the day, and most especially when the Manor was being used for meetings with Spring Court nobles, and ambassadors from the lighted cities of Vallahan and darkest depths of Hybern.

Kianna showed Begonia a way down a hardly used corridor, and then the secret passage that led to her fath- _brother's study._ The secret passage was half Tamlin's size, which meant it was perfect for them, and Kianna opened the door in the wall until it only leaked a crack of light from the other side. The crack revealed a heavy cream curtain hid their view and company of the room, but not the words of those speaking-

"So that is your final say? You won't even meet with them? At least listen to what they have to say before you send them back to Vallahan. You gave the same courtesy to _Hybern_ ," the way he said their name was even worse than the way her mother had once said it at the last supper, "you have family from Vallahan, surely that should temper you to see their proposal will only solidify your rule? Make you a worthy ruler in the eyes of foreign estates. Does that not sound reasonable?"

 _"Worthy?'_ Tamlin chuckled, there was no humor in it. "Hybern, for all its violent tendencies, even they have not _dared_ as Vallahan has. I did not see them dare suggest their young male heirs…." Her brother drawled dangerously. His temper, Kianna could feel, was close to when that alien power had leaked into her two months before, but his tone had no fear in it, only furious dismissal, "they are the ones that have come to take my position as High Lord, and to threaten me so far away from their _foreign estates._ That doesn't seem like a worthy Ally I would want in Vallahan. Males that dare me," Kianna froze at the potential attack of others on her brother, "don't live long."

The threat meant something.

"Your refusal of the tradition will be seen as a sign of weakness." Her Uncle Vanir growled in return, not seeing that her brother was trying to save the males from being killed, "they meant no disrespect, it is Vallahan tradition that the heir in question test his merit against those that would be potential successors, the Victor even celebrates amongst the competitors in good faith, only the best rule in Vallahan, it brings peace to the minds of those that follow such a supremely worthy leader"-

"This is not Vallahan." Tamlin said in equal disdain, cutting into that conversation with her Uncle having nowhere to run. "If they want me to show that to them, then you warn their fathers, their sons, and wives that this is the Spring Court. Any foreign male that dares to threaten my rule will meet the same fate as those of my Court. Let the word be said that I did not want bloodshed, but I do not shy away from it."

"Well said my dear Tamlin," now that drawl was all female, flirtatious even, "even if I would love to see you in your element, you might have need of Vallahan and their _stupidity_ one day. Best to keep bridges instead of _burning_ them."

"What is she doing here?" Kianna's Uncle was snarling now, "I thought it was only a Hybern ambassador that came, not _her_."

"Oh, I'm sorry did you become High Lord of the Spring Court?" She teased, "last time I checked, I don't answer to you."

Tamlin muttered something quietly, probably a word like _behave_ , and then Uncle Vanir word came out more viciously, "your Hybern's whore. Tamlin should send you there before your ilk follow you here. So, don't get too comfortable, there is no place for generals that kill for pleasure."

Her answer was a delicious laugh, "Oh, have I offended you, or is it that you just don't like me Vanir? You surprise me, after all those kind-hearted words at the funeral I thought you were all love and forgiveness, sounds like you are more like Hybern than you think," she sounded closer to Kianna, her quick-witted language sent a shiver through the two spying girls, "if only Tagnar would see how you treat his only son, and of the rumors I have heard you have planned for his little flower, tsk, tsk, playing two fields must be so hard," as if she was going to come to the curtain and reveal them, but changed her direction closer to where Tamlin must be sitting in her father's chair, "such manipulative rumors seem… disrespectful wouldn't you think Tamlin?"

"Behave Amarantha." Tamlin said, "I'm finished with all this. Rumors mean little to me as much as the fact that by the end of this week I have a meeting with the High Lords in preparation for peace and the Wall. If the Vallahan heirs want to continue in this charade of power than I suggest that they do it and leave my lands the way they came. I have no place in my court for usurpers. Uncle inform them of this," he dismissed with a flair, "and please send in my Captain of the Guard, he has report to give me."

"As you bid High Lord." Uncle Vanir said quickly, and the door shut behind him. Suddenly the fact that Tamlin was alone with the so called _Hybern's whore_ … seemed a bit overwhelming. She could feel Begonia shivering in cold or fear, she knew not which, because she too was shaking, the exhilaration almost made her want to pee herself. Thank the Cauldron she didn't. _They had not found out they were listening in, and now they had more than enough secrets and mysteries to keep them awake at night_ , Kianna could not believe their luck.

"If you keep that up Tamlin," the female's voice, became incredibly low, she must be very close to her brother, "I'll have you lock that door," Kianna frowned at the suggestion, "and show me that feral side of yours, possibly, as you take me on your father's desk. Now how does that sound _my High Lord_?"

The room was quiet.

"Amarantha."

"Yes, Tamlin?" Her voice was too sweet.

Suddenly there was a sound like scrapping of nails across wood, and before Kianna and Begonia could push themselves away from the hidden door, light burst into the secret passageway, and Tamlin's furious and darkening features focused on a guilty looking Kianna, "what are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, sorry!"

"Get out of there! You too Begonia." He grabbed her without a second thought, tearing her away from the darkness into the window's bright light, and into the room that she had been spying on. "I can't believe you both."

"I know." Kianna mumbled, and Tamlin shook his head, rubbing his face, and she had a moment to take it in the room before she noticed Tamlin's Hybern friend behind her.

Their father's study room was salvaged, repainted, remodeled, and everything seemed shinier and cleaner than ever before. Tamlin had added different paintings to the room, ones' their father would have snarled at being woman's paintings, of flowers, fields, and a couple on a swing. They must have been painted by a visiting noble from Vallahan she had seen recently, even a few encased poems she knew her brother had read to her on occasion before they went to sleep were on the walls, her brother, a patron of the arts… but none of that was important as Tamlin's demand to know what she was doing.

"I wanted to see you, wanted to know if you were feeling fine." That was partially true, "but then I heard you talking about things with Vallahan, and I… thought I should wait until everyone left, and then when they didn't," Kianna dared now to look up at the alarmingly beautiful Fae female that seemed to be cultured and elaborately dressed in flashy crimson and shining rubies, and she still seemed to be farthest from the description of a _whore._ She seemed a _Great Lady, a great and powerful Lady of Hybern._

Amarantha had everything that Ianthe would have wanted, but was unable to have in a Vallahan society that prized purity and religious devotion. They Hybern female had an air of sophistication, a cunning, that her Aunt Maris lacked in her suddenly pious character and plain choice of clothes, and Amarantha's enthusiastic dark eyes were alive… they seemed to glow bright with something Kianna could not yet grasp.

"This is Amarantha, Hybern's general," Tamlin saw the look both females gave one another, introducing them to one another, "this is my sister, Kianna, and our youngest cousin Begonia." Begonia bowed, but Kianna was still stuck on the boldness of Amarantha's dress and how much skin she showed without an ounce of shame and seemed to be pulling it off as if she was the Queen of Hybern herself.

"Your sister? You never told me she was this young." She drawled, the voice matching the face.

Amarantha seemed like she was fire made flesh, and the look she gave Tamlin was just as fierce, especially when she approached, stalking the wooden floor like some red timber wolf, "she looks so much like you Tamlin, she could be your daughter," Amarantha said delighted for some reason, and without so much as an invitation she leaned down and embraced Kianna, tightly, tightly that her painted talon-like nails gently pierced her arms. Kianna was still catching her breath, when she turned to Tamlin, sharing a teasing look, "oh isn't she precious, no wonder Vanir wanted to marry her off. How old are you precious little thing?" Kianna felt ill looking at Amarantha when she had her attention once more, it seemed too much, because the Hybern general made everything seem like a game for some reason, a dangerous game only she knew the rules to.

"I'm eleven." Kianna might as well have branded herself a newborn compared to Fae standards.

" _How precious_." Amarantha purred again, pushing her heavy waterfall of crimson hair over her shoulder, blinding Kianna with the red she so favored, "now we will just kill for her won't we Tamlin?" She started a conversation. "Do you know I had a little sister too Kianna, dear? I remember when she was your age, it seems like just yesterday," a daze casted over the fiery Fae female, she seemed to be in deep thought.

Kianna waited for her to expand, but when she didn't, she dared to ask, "where is your sister now?"

Tamlin's palm was suddenly on her shoulder, rougher than before, pushing her to his side. "She didn't mean that Amarantha, she doesn't know anything"-

"Oh, I know," Amarantha said coldly with a wave of her hand, standing, and looking down into Kianna's eyes with a frightening expression that she could not have imagined before, "but she should know the truth." Before Tamlin voice stopped it, Amarantha was right there before her, whispering in her ear, "humans killed her, and so I killed them all, especially the one that dared to betray her love. But that's how they are Kianna, humans are savages, worse than dogs, each and every one," was her vindictive whisper.

Kianna felt a ripple of fear as she was squeezed beside Tamlin's thigh, and Amarantha's less than composed talon-like fingers. She was far from done, "I wish they were all dead," that just made it a more miserable story, terrifying, "but I still have time." She said louder, smug for the blessing they had been given of an immortal life. "So much time."

* * *

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

* * *

"What did Amarantha mean when she said she wanted all the humans dead?" Kianna could not grasp the dreadful possibility, what it would mean to so many defenseless humans to have an enemy like her.

Kianna imagined the small little children that had no hope of fighting against deadly Fae like her, not even to run from her, and to think that humans like Willow never even hurt Amarantha in the first place, not even when they were whipped like Fae like them. Why did they always have to _suffer?_

"Tamlin!" She cried to get his attention. He was quick to respond, listening intently now. "Is she going to go after all the humans in the South and try to kill them? Will she go and kill even," _Willow,_ Kianna gulped, the tears really coming, and Tamlin quickly jumped into their conjoined bed, resting her up against his front and hugging the tears from pouring down her cheeks. Rocking the fear from her once again, the comfort of sharing a bed was never more needed than now.

"She knows the War is over Kianna," he hummed against her head. "I would never let that happen, not on our lands."

"She could go after them," Kianna knew she would, with her words, she would tear worlds down.

"No she won't." Tamlin seemed so sure. "When the boundaries of the Wall go up she won't be threatened by them, and they her," he put it plainly, "you are safe here with me Kia. I won't let anything happen you," he rubbed the spot where the energy resided in her gut, the one she gave to their shining bright little sister, and she played with his smooth arms, thinking aloud before he put her to sleep again. "Not the humans, not Vallahan, not even Amarantha. None will dare touch you while I am here." She believed him, she could feel his love, the security of it.

"What of Camellia," she hoped. "Will you protect her too?"

 _"Camellia?"_

"That is what they chose to name her." Kianna looked up at Tamlin to study his face. "I told them to give her one of our grandmother's names, an Aunt's perhaps, but they said they would rather give her a flower name."

"It is a pretty name, it will suit her," he was not getting the bigger picture.

"Our sister should be with us Tamlin, not with another Mother," she revealed her deepest worry. "I told them it wasn't right, we shouldn't be separated from her. Mother reminded me to tell you there is strength in family. We should all be together, all three of us, especially now with Vallahan trying to fight you, Uncle Vanir trying to get you to fight, and Amarantha wanting you to do it too-"

"Wow, slow down." He stopped her. "Did you say Mother still speaks to you?" Tamlin's voice became less warm, more calculating, "is she talking to you even now? Do you hear her voice?"

The dread in his voice was a sore point after Kianna had brought life to her little sister, and had confided that was the first time she had heard their mother's voice. Instead of joy and relief, there was this Tamlin. The foreign presence with almighty power troubled Tamlin, taking away her poem reading brother, made her seem as if she had lost her mind, and so he had quickly decided to just keep it between them, **_just them_**. _So..._ Kianna was not even allowed to tell Begonia, or perhaps even Azriel of her mother's voice... if he ever came back to visit at all. What troubled Tamlin most was that he did not even know it's purpose of choosing his sister in the first place, and the critical looks Tamlin gave her only made it worse.

"No, she only talked to me this morning." Kianna felt self-conscious for some reason, not wanting to hide things from him. But if he acted like this, she was not so sure anymore, "is it bad that she talks to me?"

Tamlin's did not answer right away, and that but her in a creeping unease about the whole thing, "Kianna," he rubbed his chin against her braided head, "when mother speaks to you, does she ask you to do things? Favors? Do things that scare and make you feel bad?"

"No." Kianna muttered, "she told me to watch over you, to make sure no one separated us."

He shut his eyes tightly, a smile forming on his once so serious lips, and pressed a deep kiss to her head. "Then you keep listening to our mother. If she brings you peace, then do it Kianna."

"Alright," she nestled up beside him, ready for the light to go out, but instead he went back to writing with his quill and papers.

"Can you read to me Tamlin?" That was what usually put her to bed, and she smiled when he began the poem he was working on, his voice was rhythmic, and it stole Kianna's mind and breath to listen him repeat it with such patience and pride...

 _"Your like a spring dream, and I cannot wake._

 _Even if it was my love you did forsake._

 _Now, I am The Empty One once again._

 _You, no longer my lover, not even a friend._

 _I thought this was the love from long ago._

 _But I was a fool, and now I know._

 _So I will close my heart, and fade away._

 _Back into our spring dream, is where I will stay."_

* * *

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

* * *

After she had told these stories to Azriel, he became thoughtful.

In the silence beneath the Great Oak, she had a chance to see the clear changes in his appearance from the last night he had been in the Spring Court.

He wore a jacket that he had taken off the moment she got into the part with Hybern. His Illyrian leathers had been changed for a muddy dark brown tunic and shorts, both left his muscled stomach and thighs to the imagination, but he did look comfortable, and that brought some ease to Kianna too.

She took a closer look. His grey eyes had dark bags underneath them, he rubbed them subconsciously, and that brought attention to the hairs on his face. Azriel needed a good shave compared to the last night and first time she had met him, and she was tempted to reach out and run her fingers through it. She had never seen Tamlin with facial hair, but she had seen the human men, and she wondered how different it would feel to smooth Fae skin with human rough hair. Was he half-human and half-Fae? And where did his wings come from? Big. Black. Mighty wings. Now his wings were tucked close to his body, and so she decided this was the first place she would start her closer inspection.

She reached out to them, and they flapped out in response to her daring movement, a billow of air that blew the hair out of her face, and the gust of wind tickled against her reaching fingers back into a humble fist.

He didn't look so tired anymore. "What are you doing Kianna?"

"I wanted to see how they feel," she boldly put it, "can I?"

He looked at her like he was testing her resolve.

Kianna pushed her hands out again, standing to get a better look, and he made no move to turn away, or flap them away as he did before she had asked for permission. She touched. His wings felt smoother than Fae skin, perhaps as soft as a newborns, hairless and the ridges had incredible rivers of vascularity that extended from the dark bony edges to the rich maroon and translucent-like inner skin. It was like fine paper, more durable, but she traced the red veins of the inner wing, feeling him shiver violently.

"I'm sorry, I'll stop."

"No." He said rather quickly, his hands were filled with soil, he had been grasping the ground as if in pain, "you soothe me Kianna. Don't be afraid of me."

"I am not," Kianna said assuredly, going back to her inspection with more grace, and not even touching the inside of his wings. She stretched out his wingspan in a child's curiosity, and he let her. They were three times the size of her, probably more, and she was sure he could cocoon them both if he wanted to. She wondered if he ever did that on occasion.

As if he could read her mind, he asked. "What is it Kianna?"

"Oh nothing."

"You'll wish you asked me." He already knew, and she jumped right into it.

"Do you sleep with your wings covering over you?"

"No." He chuckled, "sometimes it is a defense maneuver. I have seen Cassian do it sometimes, he sometimes tries to get me to do it too." She saw the light that came into his eyes at the mention of this Cassian.

She had to know who brought him this happiness, "Who's Cassian?"

"He's just one of my friends."

"Wow," Kianna could not imagine it, the blessing of having more than one friend, especially those that knew how to fight instead of being locked inside rooms, and minding their own boring business, perhaps he could teach her some moves too. Perhaps that would make Tamlin include her on his rounds with the sentinels of his Guard, "Azriel? How many friends do you have?"

"A few," Azriel chuckled at her awed gaze.

"Tell me, tell me please," Kianna urged him, hoping that he would.

She was sure she overwhelmed him because his white cheeks became pink, and even the edges of his white rounded ears did too. Kianna went to touch those too amazed, "do they have round ears and wings like you too? Does everyone have wings?"

"No, some of my friends are like you, and some like me."

"Explain," Kianna found a comfortable space beside him, nudging his knee with hers, "I want to know everything."

"Everything?" Kianna nodded eagerly, and Azriel could not find it in himself to disappoint her.

* * *

 **Do you like the direction and where the chapter is going? I hope you do!**

 **Have a wonderful weekend,**

 **leave a review for what you want, and what you hope to see in the following chapters,**

 **as always love you and appreciate you all,**

 **Odeveca**


	13. Safe

**Chapter 13: Safe  
**

* * *

 **AZRIEL**

Upon his return, the House of Wind was peacefully slumbering and deeply shadowed by the twinkling night sky.

When Azriel banked and turned in midair, he caught the starlight on his jet black wings. He could confess, he was elongating his celebratory circle of return, and he banked hard against the sweet pull of racing wind, the scents and familiar prickle of air felt delicious against his wings and bare arms. That is the only way he could truly feel it… only way he could feel the ancient and noble House enveloping his rising dark presence.

It's own ancient power reached out to _his shadows_ as it had done the first time Selene had brought him in with Rhys, Cassian, and toddling Nyx.

 _"Chase me shadowsinger," Cassian dared him, "come on faster you wimp."_

 _Azriel smirked, for once allowing the shadows to envelop him as he cheated the same way Rhys had, tagging a royally pissed off boy Cassian._

 _"No fair! No magic," Cassian had hated when they used their magic to get he upper hand, "give me a ten second head start this time cheater!"_

 _"You have to run faster, numbskull!" Rhys was always the winner, having all the capabilities they both lacked, but that didn't make it any less fun._

 _A rather mute Azriel let Cassian have his ten seconds._

 _He was just excited that for once an Illyrian didn't fear him. That all three of them had become closer than ever before at the insistence of Selene as their surrogate mother, and to the shrieking joy of a rather adorable Nyx._

 _How Azriel wished for a moment of those days to return, just to listen to Nyx's peels of laughter, and chasing after all three of them as if she was born to do it._

Azriel shoved the bittersweet memory away before it became too much, and focused on making a safe landing.

By the light of the crescent half-moon, it caste the House and mountainside in a milky white glow. It showed Azriel the way as he entered from the balcony entrance, his wings cold and tired from overwhelming flight, and they settled and tuckered against his back as his feet landed on the ivory tile floor. The way back home had lasted a dragging hour after winnowing into the Night Court lands.

Crossing Velaris' magical barrier was another matter entirely.

Sure, it had recognized him this time around, which for those that knew was half the battle, but the sheer suspicious and capricious nature of the sentient barrier had stolen the remnants of Azriel's strength and forced him to take a jog through a once well-known short-cut through the Galra Mountain caves. It was as if he had entered into a wild winter marathon. A marathon filled with teeth-chattering encounters with Nigh Court beasts, coming face to face with winged creatures like himself, and others that were not so much like him.

They were creatures as old as shadow and frost, and they were dealt with Truth-Teller and cowardly mad dashes into shadow to escape their teeth and claws. As a last resort he had almost lost himself in said shadows, tempted to winnow straight into Velaris and set off Rhys or Mor's attention, but at least he would be alive and not in the maw of some hungry winter beast.t

Even the brave Illyrian warrior in him, the one that had survived the Blood Rite, felt the desperate need to get back into the safety of open air rather than risk another second in the dark and dank mountain caves.

Azriel thanked the Cauldron when his wings stretched and flapped him back out from the cave's mouth, with only the evaporating mountain mist that dripped from with him as he soared once again free along the ridges of Mountain leading back to Velaris. The rough tickle of wind brought back the memory of Kianna's ghost-like fingers brushing against them earlier today. It sent a shudder through him. Her brave and curious fingers were all the warmth he needed to make it back home.

One thing was certain as he spotted the glitter of Velaris, the flight to the Spring Court weighed heavy on his unaccustomed body. Azriel would need to learn how to conserve his energy on his future trips or find a way that would not cost him so much of it.

It was a welcomed reprieve as his feet took to the tiled floor of the House of Wind, the burden of his weight once more on his thighs rather than the wings connecting into his back. Like a baby bat learning to crawl, his wobbly feet led him to the twin beds of Nuala and Cerridwen. He expected them to be dead asleep after a day with Mor, perhaps smiling in their sleep, dreaming their innocent dreams, and _found their beds empty._

That was the first red flag.

The second was when Azriel's shadows nudged him to be very alert… of the person sitting behind him.

Azriel swiveled in an abrupt stumble to see that he wasn't alone _, that someone_ sat in a sofa-seat next to the balcony's drapes. Azriel had missed his presence, because he had become so accustomed to it that he had let it catch him without any worry to his own tired senses. For the first time in history he regretted it. "Did you have a nice day out Az?"

"Rhys." There wasn't anything he could say, he already knew, "you stayed up."

Rhys made no comment. Suspicious, and yet calm in their observation. His eyes shone like twin violet daggers, so polished and gleaming Az was sure his High Lord could tear into his mind and rip every answer he felt the shadowsinger was keeping from him. And yet… Azriel was only left with the shame at keeping his brother in the dark.

Rhys already knew. His tired sigh after reading his thoughts confirmed it.

Azriel still asked. "You know?"

"Of course, I know." Rhys rubbed the lines on his forehead, he did that when he was tired, or pissed, he looked both now as he continued. "When Mor told me to watch out for you, I thought," he shrugged. "She's making a big deal, she always makes it bigger deal where your concerned, especially when Cass and I bug you, she just wanted to chop our balls off, and I bet you love to hear that." Azriel did feel a bit better, but knew it was not worth what came next. "But," Rhys paused. "When Cass told me that something was off, that you weren't going out anymore, that you had gone missing for the entire day when you were supposed to join him at the camps… that was when I knew," he waged an accusing finger at him. "That is when I knew you had not let her go. That you went straight to see her when I _told_ you not to."

"Where is Cerridwen and Nuala?"

"Don't change the subject Az, not even Mor is not going to save you this time, so sit," he motioned for the seat on the sofa facing before him, "sit down."

Az had no choice, so he did.

He was judged instantly. "Look at you." Rhys noticed how filthy Az was against the clean soft material of the sofa seat. "What did you fall into this time?"

"A Galran snow beast," Az picked at the green gunk of blood on his shirt, it still had some of its white fur that he had sliced into for the sake of avoiding it's thousand teeth, "well what was left of it."

"Right." He hissed, "not only do you have to deal with the beasts in the Spring Court, now you must take the long way to Velaris as if I wouldn't already know how to track your sneaky ass." That chilled Azriel. To think that Rhys would follow him to those savage Galran caverns. What if one of those beasts had landed a lucky shot, would Rhys go searching, put himself in danger like that? _He didn't need to ask._ Azriel cursed under his breath.

Rhys took it as his own confirmation. "Do you not see what is happening here, the lengths you are willing to go for her? It isn't right Az, it isn't right that you can die from this."

"She was fine." That is what he had been itching to know. "Better than fine. She was so happy." Azriel finally caved, finding no reason to hide it from Rhys, when the benefits would enforce his reasoning, "this was the answer that I needed to know. I needed to know for sure that she made it out, that her brother did what he was supposed to do-"

" _Her brother?"_ Rhys voice was eerily calm at the mention of Tamlin the Traitor.

"It wasn't like that Rhys."

"How was I supposed to know?" There was more hurt in his voice than Az had expected him to have. "Did you share fathering tips? Did he thank you for approving his _brotherly_ methods?"

"Rhys stop it."

"Did you tell him about how you lied to me?" Now that was too serious for Az to ever get him to stop. Rhys accusations made him feel like the traitor. "That you would betray your High Lord just to see if his little sister was… _happy_?"

"It's more than that Rhys, and you know it."

"Then explain it to me," Rhys encouraged him, clasping his hands before him as if in prayer. "Make me understand why you would do this.

"It's just-"Azriel was not sure how it was more than that, or he didn't know how to explain just yet.

It was not curiosity when it came to Kianna. His soul flourished and calmed at the thought of her safe and happy instead of at the hands of terrible High Lord brother. "I have let too many people be pawns in other Masters' games." First his mother, then it was Mor's abuse, Selene and Nyx butchered, Cassian forced away from his mother, and even Rhys…. Azriel would be damned to have another on that list. "I am not going to stand aside and let innocents like her _suffer_. I made her a promise." A promise was a sacred thing. Rhys knew that. "I promised she would be safe if I left her there with her brother, and that was what I was doing."

"You went without my permission, you went without thinking."

"I took precautions for us, for Velaris." Azriel made that very clear. "I made sure I wasn't seen by anyone other than Kianna."

"She saw you," Rhys repeated Azriel, but his words had no relief in them. "You both spoke to one another, and shared stories. You told her quite a bit."

"Not about Velaris."

"You still told her things." Rhys pointed out, and Az could not deny this. He didn't feel the need to until his High Lord questioned him. "What if she tells Tamlin all the information you gave her?"

Azriel immediately rejected that idea. "She wouldn't."

"You don't know that."

"I do."

"You can't know that Az," Rhys did have a point. That nagging voice at the back of Azriel's head groaned dread at the thought that she would go running to her brother with this information. No matter how earnest his last request was not to tell anyone of him, and her simple declaration to never tell anyone to keep him safe. "Even if you believe her, you can't know for sure if she was or wasn't going to tell Tamlin." Rhys repeated himself. "What if Tamlin is the one that set her up to talk to you?"

"No."

"Did you talk about Mor," Azriel's guilty face said it all, Rhys continued on in his interrogation. "What about Cassian, and even me? What if he is planning an attack on us, and you gave him the information he needed to get us?"

"No, she isn't like that." That may be Tamlin but that was not Kianna.

"What if the next time you go," Rhys played the scenario out. "He'll be there instead, and I lose my shadowsinger, as well as a brother. He would start a war with me, and I would have no choice but include all the Night Courts and Illyrians too. Is that the position you want to put me in?" Now it was Rhys turn to look in pain. "Now can you see? You see why I can't let you do this to yourself? Come on," he slapped Azriel's lap. "I have to show you something."

Azriel did not feel like staying with him after he had shattered his future with Kianna, let alone following Rhys when he would rather sit here and wait for his twins, hide his upset with caring for them, and more importantly doing his job by meeting with his spies that were meant to have informed him hours ago.

Rhys head peeked back into the room, "Az, you coming?"

Azriel sighed, never letting go of this feeling as he rose up from the safe plush of the sofa seat, and followed his High Lord with tired knees and deadweight wings.

* * *

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

* * *

They took their time getting to the town-house in Velaris.

The grand front window was wide open, the curtains drawn to let the rich warm yellow play out on the cobblestone street. The scene displayed a Morrigan that was hanging holly vine with Cerridwen and Nuala, her smile was visible from even her, and it brought its own warmth to Azriel. She had once told him she loved the winter season, and in this moment Azriel thought it suited her.

Seeing her now, unaware of how far he had gone without thinking of Velaris, of her safety, of all their safety, only distracted him from the reason why Rhys brought them here.

 _"What are we doing here Rhys?"_

"You'll see." Rhys walked up the steps, not bothering to knock as it was his home. Azriel followed, his head hung low as he entered the warmth his weary bones soaked to the core, and warmed his once frozen fingers and lungs.

"Az! You made it!" Mor said his name with so much happiness as she got down from the ladder, unleashing too much of that blinding smile, that he lost the words he was supposed to say. "I knew you would make it!" She showed the bells and garlands. "HAPPY YULE!"

Azriel's stomach dropped.

Mor went on cherry as ever. "We have a few things you can help with now that you are here. For one can you tell Cassian to stop eating all the food before we even begin our Yule prayer! He doesn't listen to a word I say!"

Az felt his eyebrows reach his browline. _Yule prayer? Yule feast? Yule gifts?_ He groaned at the disaster of it all.

"You're late Azzy my boy." Cassian was drunk, patting his shoulder harder than he should, good-tempered he may seem, but his alcoholic breath and uspet eyes said something else. "Mor and the girls were going to start with out you. I told you not to be a sorry ass and stay at the camps, but no," he burped in Azriel's disgusted face. "You can't work yourself to death Azzy, that's my job." Cass winked at him, just in case he didn't notice that he had just covered for him in front of Mor and the girls, covered that he hadn't gone to the apparently dangerous and double-agent Kianna.

"What kept you Azzy?" Cassian knew exactly why he had been late, and why he had been gone in the first place.

A grim shake of Rhysand's head only made it worse. "I already talked to him"-

"And I am here now, so just leave it be." Azriel bit out, shutting them both up.

"He wouldn't miss this." Nuala piped up for once amongst the group of adults, and Cerridwen close behind with adding, "he promised us that he would not forget! We were planning on making cookies, right Azriel! Make cookies with us!"

Azriel knew he was an idiot, a complete and total idiot.

"You forgot?" The Fae female caught on, an expert on his emotions before he even knew them. "Az! I reminded you yesterday to go shopping," Mor pouted her lip too, and Azriel shrugged in his utter defeat. It would seem he was just a compelte mess and Rhys should just give him some other torture than this one, nothing was worse than seeing the light of happiness leave Nuala's and Cerridwen's eyes at him forgetting. The disappointment in Mor's eyes… he couldn't even look at her to see it.

"He didn't forget." Rhys produced two gifts out from thin air, "we made a few stops before coming, these are for you two." He added, with a playful wink. "from Azriel."

"Yes, yes! Thank you so much Azriel!" the twin girls grew so excited as they pounced and tore open their gifts of something shiny and expensive. Things Azriel certainly did not buy.

Azriel frowned to himself as Cassian whispered something to Rhys like, _good save_ , and he distracted himself by putting down his coat at the peg, followed with his scarf, having to awkwardly nudge by Mor that looked like she was debating arguing with him now or later.

Azriel did not have the energy now, not even the energy to argue with her disappointment or with Rhys' constant need to include him.

As he brushed his snow from his hair, he knew Rhys didn't have to do things like this.

His High Lord didn't have to save his lying ass when he had obviously messed up one promise in favor of another. Kianna had received the gift of his presence this Yule morning, but he had in turn forgotten of how Nuala and Cerridwen had begged him about the gifts and cookies. Both had expected more of him, they all expected him to be here, his… _family._ Azriel hated the pain of knowing he had let down his family.

"You didn't Az, don't beat yourself up anymore." Rhys was right there to help him dust off his coat from the frosty night, he had taken his other side as Cassian came over to look between them, tempted perhaps to say something inappropriate, but stood silent after a look from Rhys and Azriel.

"I could beat something into you-"

"Don't Cass," Azriel beat him to it. "You don't have to add your two cents."

"He really can't help it. Cut him some slack." It was Rhys that whispered to him, very chatty today it would seem, "you see what I was trying to tell you. How important our family is. We may drive you crazy." He repeated himself, "but we have your back Az, just don't lie to us. That doesn't help us trying to save you when the time comes."

"That's right sour puss." Cassian agreed, tired of the somber mood between his brothers, too drunk to care it would seem, and in a hugging mood as he put in Azriel in a very uncomfortable position, too close to his alcoholic breath and embracing arms. "You are stuck with us Azzy, if you like it or not, we have your ass on lock-down from now on. No more adventures unless we go with you," he said in a mocking tone, "do you understand soldier!"

Azriel rolled his eyes, Cassian always knew just what to say, even if his word choice was not what he was used to with lurking in the shadows of his Lord father's mansion, nor in the cunning whispers of treasonous nobles. "Thanks," Azriel said, letting Cass hug him for a moment, before pushing him off, "but I don't deserve this."

"Oh yes you do, this is Yule!" Mor had snuck up on them. "Everyone gets gifts! Even the boys already got their gifts." She had warm brown eyes, and they were wide and enchanting as she walked into their space, and she bit her lower lip as the Illyrian blooded men waited for her to explain the gift she was holding in her hands. Whatever her reason, she was stealing all of Azriel's attention, and maybe his breath too, "and this gift is for you." She handed him his first gift of Yuletide. "It's just a little something the girls and I thought of, and it would have been a crime not to get it for you."

He felt worse. "You got me something?"

"Just open it."

Azriel took it in his scarred hands, the gift was too pretty for the like of his frostbitten knuckles.

The gift was wrapped in expensive golden paper, the same color as Mor's glittering dress during the Ceremony of Rhys becoming an official High Lord. She had looked so ethereal that night, so devastating to be anything but the future High Lady, and now she had given a piece of it to him. This memory was a gift in itself.

"Oh," was his answer, clearly overwhelmed with the situation.

"You have to open it Az." She teased him.

"I know." Azriel was extremely careful with the Mor's perfect wrapping, not wanting to tear or ruin it in any way. "You didn't have to do this." Nuala and Cerridwen were paying attention to them now, shadowing Mor's warm gaze, as if it mattered what his reaction would be. As if… his happiness was theirs too. "Thank you girls," Azriel let the words tumble from his lips, humbled, "I don't know what to say."

"How about you open it," Cassian's smart remark broke the moment, "or you could let me open it. I am sure I would enjoy it more than you ever would."

"No," Azriel pulled it away, making them all laugh, and the ghost of a smile played on his lips when he opened his gift, and his heart melted at the sight at what they had taken the time to find and gift him.

It was new and leathered gloves, slim and comfortable to the touch, perhaps a bit too comfortable for the likes of him, but they would be perfect to cover his hands and wrist from the cold. He put them on and groaned at the feel of them, it was as if they were made for him.

"Do you like them?" He was not sure whom asked him, but his surprised smile made them give rounds of laughs and giggles.

Nuala and Cerridwen knocked into his knees, hugging, and snuggling into him like kittens, and then settling in his arms when they drank and reminisced on simpler times on the sofa seats. They reminisced of Selene's cooking, of Nyx singing Yule songs, and with their hearts opened wide Azriel understood what Rhys meant for him to see.

 _You put this at risk. You were betting this, for a girl you barely knew._

Azriel knew Rhys was right, his methods of showing him might have been a bit too personal, hitting a bit too close, and his eyes met with Rhys.

 _I wanted this for Kianna too. I wanted her to feel as safe as Nuala and Cerridwen, as safe as you make me feel._

Rhys eyes widened and after a deliberate moments of contemplation, he nodded.

Azriel was not sure if he understood, but he was beginning to understand his High Lord's perspective. Respect him more now, and his need to protect their family before all else. That was something he could stand behind. When Nuala and Cerridwen went off to bed, Cassian and Mor whispering on the couch over a bottle of wine, was when Rhys was right there waiting for him. "Get ready to leave."

"Don't you two be gone too long," Mor slurred, her cheeks a beautiful cherry.

"We won't." Rhysand put a scarf around his bulky clothing, Azriel did too, and the new gloves that he had already grown fond of. They were more than prepared and rested.

When they got outside, Rhys had a look in his eyes, one that meant their business was not finished. "I have one last thing to show you."

"Alright." Azriel followed him down the street, until walking was not fast enough, Rhys revealed and formed his own Illyrian wings, and both of them took to the Velaris' skies.

* * *

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

* * *

Azriel was expecting Rhys to take him to the graves of Nyx and Selene.

To remind him of those first nights of terror and mental torture, and whom was responsible for making Rhys the last living member of his blood family. Of what Spring Court family had forced the High Lord responsibility on him at the tender age of thirty-five, too youthful for the weight of the title, but if anyone could do it, Rhys could.

"Thanks Az," Rhys got this eat-shitting grin on his face as they climbed the grand steps to the center of Velaris. "I know, I know your thoughts are private, but come on, you let that one get too loud, it's not my fault when you yell your compliments to me." He slapped the shadowsinger's tense back, "geez you can relax it is must me." He reminded him as they walked, "I hear more than my share of Cass and Mor's thoughts." That brought him no comfort as they walked in the direction of the library. Even if they both were in a better mood. "For the record, you want to know why I can't let you get killed? I'll tell you," he pulled on Az's cheek, "because you are the softie of our group, can't have a group without one, you are the bread to our butter, the pudding to our dessert."

"I am not soft Rhys, and I am definitely not dessert," he brushed off Rhys attempt at making him beyond uncomfortable. This time, he could blame it on the two bottles he had hogged to himself back at the townhouse, he could not remember the last time Rhys was so drunk, or so touchy. He had to remind him to keep his hands to himself. "Stop it Rhys, you know I don't like that." Az's grim mouth grew at the sight of the library's keepers, mutilated Fae females, and it grew deeper at Rhys taunts at having the hots for the priestess, perhaps Mor could dress herself as one for him later on tonight.

"Yeah and then I could have Cassian wear one for you. Bet your so drunk you couldn't tel the difference."

"Did you just make a joke?" Rhys eyes were comical, as if he doubted his own ears.

Azriel kept the truth to himself as they made it to the front desk of the library, a priestess with a crown of limpid stones across her head waited there for them, and a mangled hand that she covered in her pale blue robe as she bowed. The heavy robes seemed to swallow her rather skeleton frame, and for some reason that sad thought reminded him of his mother.

 _Welcome High Lord._ Azriel's shadows for some reason whispered the priestess' silent mental welcome. _Welcome High Lord and his Shadow, may I be of service._

"Clotho," Rhys knew her, very easily hearing her same thoughts. "Thank you for your assistance, but I am merely touring your Grand Library with my spy master." That was the first time Rhys had called him that. _Weird._ He had never thought of Rhys as anything more than his brother or High Lord. To hear their public relationship reminded how much trust and knowledge they shared with one another. Of how incredibly important his position was to Rhys, not only as his brother, but as a _spy master._ Yes, he most certainly would not forget.

 _Of course, I will let you tour the Grand Library,_ she bowed her head in the same salutation the people of Velaris gave their High Lord. A respect that Azriel never got tired of, _call me if you need any assistance my High Lord._

"Of course," Rhys walked forward, Azriel following him as the mutilated female Fae watched them, her skinny frame and big blue eyes kept on them until they turned around a mountain of shelves.

The priestess intrigued Azriel, he felt the need to ask. "Did a human cut out her tongue?"

"No." Rhys said, finding the stairwell with open air beyond, a behemoth dark hole below, a hole he looked directly into. "Her _High Lord_ gave her it." Azriel had a feeling it could only be two High Lords as he took the place beside him, the stairwell digging into his stomach. Rhys was probably talking about a certain one by the sounds of it.

Rhys pushed. "Do you want to know what for?"

"I bet this is why I am here. I am listening Rhysand," that was something Azriel did very well. Possibly too well.

"The tongue was for taking a Lesser Fae as a lover. Mor found the sentinels that did it, took care of them," Azriel felt a smidgen of pride in that statement, even she understood freedom. "Our Morrigan was tempted to go after Tagnar as well. In the Spring Court," Azriel gritted his teeth, knowing Rhysand would use this as his defense against Kianna. "In the Spring Court, Tagnar forbade any inter-racial relationships between High Fae and Lesser Fae, let alone a Fae with a human. That sentence would have been death."

Azriel had a feeling that was not the only thing Rhys had to tell him. If he thought that Kianna would ever be that for him then he was sorely mistaken. "Why did you really bring me here Rhys?"

Rhys leaned on the railing, daring to gaze deeper into the dark pit beneath them. It seemed to swallow everything, Azriel thought that it would swallow them too if they dared to go into it.

"My mother brought me here once." Rhys reminisced, "told me to look down in the hole, told me that a great monster lived down there, and if I misbehaved again by flying off then she would make me go down and see it."

He could not imagine a sweet Selene daring to put her son in that situation.

"Oh, she really did Az." Rhys read his mind. "Do you know why I brought you here to look down?" Azriel let him answer his own question, "because I now understand what my mother was doing, she was saving me, by scaring me."

For all the dark and monsters Azriel was not afraid.

"I was afraid you would think that Az. So, I am going to have to scare you with your own monster."

Rhys sent an image into his mind, one that was despicable.

"No." Az recoiled from the image, it was unbearable to remember, "you wouldn't."

"I would if it meant you would not die on me Az." Rhys shook his head, "I hate to be this person, but you left me no choice. I can't lose you, not so soon after I lost both my parents, and Nyx. Cass and Mor feel the same, but I knew you wouldn't listen if it came from them, maybe Mor, but I had to be sure."

"You wouldn't do that Rhys," Azriel swallowed the heavy feeling in his throat. "To take my memories of Kianna would only leave me with a bigger hole. How could you take that from me?"

"I would do it for Velaris." Rhys said passionately, turning his piercing eyes on him, "but more importantly I would do it for you."

"Not me Rhys." Even the thought of having his mind tampered with... and to have Rhys of all the people in the world to do that to him. "Don't say something like that." _I would never trust you again_ , he urged Rhys to understand. "Perhaps it could be for Velaris, because if you asked me again, I swear this time, this time would be different." Azriel squeezed his eyes, hating the words as they came out. "You could trust me, I would not go see Kianna. If I knew it would cause this much trouble, then I would have…" _but would he have not gone?_ Probably not. Rhysand's eyes darkened, probably knowing it too. "But I know now Rhys, you wouldn't have to do that. I can rest now knowing she is happy, knowing she is safe."

"Her life could change Az," he reminded the shadowsinger, "not everyone stays safe. You know that, we learned that this year."

 _What a year it had been. A year could change everything, change it too much. Nyx, Selene, his father, they would never get them back. Who would have ever thought that last Yule would be the last one Rhys would have with his family? All his mother's traditions, and she would never enjoy them again.  
_

"I never expected things to end up like this," Rhys agreed too, ever sombre when it came to Azriel's ever darkening thoughts. "Most nights I wish it was me Tamlin and his brothers had found instead of Mother and Nyx. Perhaps my father would still be alive. Perhaps they would have the answers to the mess I was left with. My father would have known what to do, my mother could have helped him-"

"Don't say it like that Rhys. I don't know, we couldn't know for sure-" losing Rhys to the enemy seemed like too steep a price. Losing his family had been a blow, but Rhys imaginary death... _was just too unforgivable to think of._

"But it's true," Rhys butted in, "this proposition for the Wall can go haywire the moment we accept it, my father knew that. Especially the incantations needed for the wards and the anti-spell we would need to cloak it in for the humans daring cross… it will take all the High Lords coming together, combining our strength, and that's no easy task when working with Tamlin in person." He rubbed his face, "I might as well save myself the trouble and declare War on him now."

He didn't have to say it like that. "Perhaps Mor and I could go. We could deal with the preparations for the Wall, that is what we are here for, let us help you."

"Mor yes." He eyed Azriel's wings. "Your presence would not be good for Kianna, not if she were to bring attention to you both. What if Tamlin saw the way she reacted to you? Would he send her away in fear, and make an example of her? _Make an example of you_?"

It gave no comfort to Azriel to know the power Tamlin had over Kianna's life. That one day, perhaps in fifty years, a hundred years, she would have to face the norms and expectations of a daughter and now sister to a High Lord.

"When the times comes…" Azriel left it in the air, "we can have this conversation again. I am part of your team Rhysand, I am part of _your family_ ," and that right there was the closest he had ever come to saying it. Rhysand knew how hard it was for him to confess that, after the history he had with his mother as practically a slave in that Lord's house. Seen first hand what family could do to a person.

Rhys corrected him. " _Our_ family Az."

"Ours." Azriel's proud smirk made the word too good to be true. "After today, you reminded me how precious that is. I won't forget it."

"I know you won't." Rhysand patted him on his back, a rare sign of brotherly affection he would usually see in one of Cassian's taunts, but Rhys meant it in a good way. Dare he say it in a loving way that made him feel safe and uncomfortable rolled all into one. "I want you to remember this moment Az, remember this the next time you get it in your head to visit Kianna. She is part of Tamlin's Court, and no matter how much you want to trust her… we can't take the risk."

"I know." Azriel knew that now. Even if he hated it, "I know Rhys."

* * *

 **How did you like this Azriel chapter? Any parts you want me to look into :)  
**

 **What of Kianna's next chapter, want to go into any topics of interest.**

 **As always, I look forward to hear what you guys think,**

 **thank you so much for sticking to this story, your reviews always push me to do better,**

 **thank you and have a wonderful rest of your weekend,**

 **Odeveca**


	14. Pathfinder

**Chapter 14: Pathfinder  
**

* * *

 **(10 years later). 10 ATW (After The War)  
**

 **KIANNA**

The change began on a brisk and cool dawn morning.

On the tenth winter solstice, _by tradition_ , she woke before the crack of dawn, and hurried through the matured fruit pastures to spend a few stolen hours with Azriel before the world awoke and they would have to return to their lives on opposite ends of Prythian.

It might as well be _another world_ with all the difference it made.

Time slipped like water in the land of Fae, and now twenty-one-year-old Kianna was surprised how little had changed in her Court of Thorns and Roses, of Ever-Spring, and where the honeyed words of mummers and con-artists never ran dry.

Whatever came of her genteel-life in Tamlin's Court, meanwhile she was sprouted her roots. Tall as a beanstalk someone had once said and had lost some of the rebellion of her youth, and despite their comments, she still felt like herself. The bright light of the alien power laid dormant inside her, after years of paying it no heed she could forget it was even there. What Kianna couldn't forget was the aching for the unfortunates hurt so badly by the fallout of the War and making of the Wall. She had got some answers with Hybern, Vallahan, and other nobles from the Courts, but half-ass answers about order seemed to still haunt her conscious mind.

Despite those yearly changes, her relationship with the shadowsinger was still simple enough to where she felt no pressure to be anything but herself.

"Open it," Azriel bent his head to the gift she could not seem to open.

"I didn't get you anything," she mumbled, upset that he had lied. "You promised no gifts this year."

"Just open it Kianna," he teased. "You can get me a gift later."

Kianna did, and squealed at what she found inside, "oh Azriel I love it!" She wrapped her hands around his shoulders as they sat beside him. Happier that now she could reach his shoulders.

"It's nothing. Cassian said the Illyrian female was glad to be rid of it, it brought her more trouble than good." The Illyrian leathers were beautiful, Kianna appraised the dark suede and how it would complement her fully grown figure and knew that Azriel had only bought it because she could not stop asking about his traditions and how she could make the gorgeous leather battle gear for herself.

"Well," she patted his knee playfully. "What news do you have for me? How are your friends?"

He didn't need the encouragement, Azriel had been waiting to tell her.

It came to a point where Kianna had to stop Azriel before he moved on again. "Wait, wait, wait a second, you're going too fast-"

Kianna could see the hint of a smirk growing on shadowsinger's lips when he noticed how this overwhelmed her. His shiny raven hair, a bit wet from the dawn's brisk cold, covered his eyes for a moment before he moved it out of the way. "What is?"

"I still don't get it." She pointed out, breathing in a deep sigh. "How is _Mor_ a nickname for a girl? Are you sure she isn't a boy? Because after all the stories you told me these years, she sounds like a boy to me." Azriel's stories and accomplishments of this fabled Morrigan seemed far-fetched for a High Fae female to get up to. To add the fact that she was a Lord's daughter, baffled Kianna to the teachings Aunt Maris had beat into her of modesty, charm, and above all submission.

"Mor is _definitely_ a girl," Azriel put it lightly.

"How do you know for sure?" Kianna questioned more urgently, not getting Azriel's humor at her questions. "Some of the Vallahan boys look like girls," they wore enough perfume to be girls, "and even a girl I know looks like a boy."

 _"She does?"_

"Yes." Kianna explained. "She was raised to be a boy. Her father is Captain of the Guard, and he never wanted daughters, and so she was forced to be a boy from birth. Begonia says she even trains with the other boys." Kianna thought it odd, but intriguing at the same time. Perhaps she could talk to Tamlin about it. "Her name is Yuma, but her name sounds way more girl-like than Mor, so what's her excuse?"

"Trust me, Mor is as female as it gets." For some reason he grinned at her question, a rarity if she ever saw one, and she grinned back in shock at catching him so off guard. "Females can be just as fierce and courageous as males, any male that says differently is either craven or just stupid."

"Oh, okay," she rolled her eyes playfully, enjoying the face he made when she did. Like a little fly landed on his lip and he couldn't wipe it away. "Okay, okay Azriel, I believe you, gosh you turn into such a baby when someone teases you."

After a long while sitting under the Oak Tree, their conversations became almost _fun._ Their easy-going banters and explanations were smooth and slippery as lake stone picked from its watery slumber. There was no topic that remained forbidden.

She dared a glance at his face deep in thought, knowing this was the perfect time to get away with it.

The shadowsinger's kind face was clearer now in the morning light instead of the late-night monthly visits they usually had. The soft glow of the rising sun made his symmetrical and roguish chiseled features pleasant to look at, she envied his beauty, his quiet yet confident nature that she so lacked, and perhaps someday another male would think the same of her.

 _I want to be just like you when I grow up_ , Kianna had told some years ago.

Azriel had been at a loss for words when he first heard her declaration. His fascinating round ears and stubbed cheeks turning a faint pink when she shined her eyes at him, and then he muttered, _that she shouldn't talk like that_ , not when she already knew he was not worthy of being emulated.

 _But you are_ , she insisted.

She had a feeling he did not get praised enough.

The Azriel that belonged to the Night Court, to Kianna, seen to not get much personal time just for himself. Time to just sit and talk about simple things, especially with pretty females of this Court or another, and not really understanding why that was. As they shared things, Kianna wanted pensive shadowsinger to be happy, wanted him to think himself worthy, and didn't know why others would think of him in such a bad light.

"Kianna," he sighed, his mighty wings twitched at the worried expression on her face. "Mor is a perfectly good girl's name. You do know that Mor short for Morrigan?" She made a face. "Come now, Mor is a very feminine name." He corrected her, "a pretty name for a very loving and wonderful female, I've told you, you're going to like her when you meet her." Kianna frown grew in jealousy at the mention of it, and his insistence to rub _his preference_ in. Suddenly her stories were tinted in green, she was not in the mood to talk about the great and mighty _Morrigan_.

" _Kianna_ ," she put it out there, saying her name felt off on her lips, almost as if she would curse herself by doing so. "Kianna, is a pretty girl's name too," she hoped he would begin to think so, "sometimes Tamlin calls me Kia. It means Ancient One. It means that I will be wise beyond my years one day _." One day_ seemed far off when she was only in her twenties, but _one day_ she would make it count.

His eyes narrowed. "Kianna," his voice changed, stern for a soft voice like his. "It's good to learn from others. You shouldn't be intimidated by what others can teach you."

 _"Okay."_ Kianna hung her head as she sat beside the shadowsinger, feeling the guilt wash over her for reverting to her childish mind, and she didn't want to be known as a Jealous One, _especially by him._

Azriel saw this. "Do you like being called Kia?"

That threw her off, he asked her opinion more than anyone she had ever met. This visit, he had been doing that quite a bit. When she had brought up the rarity of his questioning, he mentioned the possibilities the Night Court would have for her, and only in places like his home would her opinion continue to mean something.

"I liked when people call me _little Lady,"_ Kianna's cheeks grew warm at the thought of him calling her that, because she was so tiny compared to him, but she was not so little as the first years she had sat beside him underneath the Great Oak.

Despite the passing years, Azriel's Illyrian wings could still encircle and keep her away from the big bad world he seemed to believe in. He could carry her off, high above the Spring Court forest itself, show her the land from the sky, and take her without questions asked, and he still didn't, did not even dare mention the possibility of it. Azriel, was so different from her brutish brothers and father, sweeter than even Tamlin, the best of her brothers, he let her control the flow of the conversation, state her mind without berating and drawing suspicion, and that made it harder to say their goodbye every time he had to leave.

Yet, there was a sadness to him.

Azriel had lost two very close females to his heart. It had been a decade since then, but still, she had lost a father, mother, and brothers too and she still felt their deaths keenly, that meant that Azriel was not over it, not by a long shot.

The shared loss still rung between them from time to time. Kianna would cry it out when the grief became too much, and Azriel would butcher the grass watching her. There were just some things he did not like mentioning. She wondered if there would ever be a time when he opened himself up to the past, to the way their deaths made him feel, what his High Lord made him feel, perhaps that was only something he did with his _friends_.

"Alright," Azriel nodded as he caught her thinking up a storm. "Any more questions _little Lady_ before I go?"

"When I am older." She hoped her question would keep him and strike his interest to stay longer. "Perhaps when I turn fifty? Could you take me to see the House of Wind?"

He had only praises for the place in their previous conversations. The House of Wind could grant more opportunities and rights to a female Fae he had argued. Compared to other highly dominated patriarchal lands it seemed like a dream to a young female. He mentioned how Kianna could be anything she wanted to be there.

"When you're older." He repeated as if in thought. "I think we could make a visit work. Mor would love to meet you." If he wasn't smiling before he really was now. Smiling suited Azriel, that was fast becoming her favorite thing about him. "Nuala and Cerridwen are about your age too, they would probably get you to pull pranks on me, they love doing that. I swear I get it from Cassian and Mor, I am outnumbered half the time, Cauldron knows they think it is the funniest thing in Prythian." Kianna giggled at the thought of meeting his friends, of playing pranks of Azriel, and more importantly seeing his world.

"Kianna?"

He had her attention. "Yes."

"Do your friends often talk of traveling one day, perhaps up North-" he caught the fall in her face. "Kianna, you have friends, don't you?"

"I have Begonia," she added because she had to. Her isolation from other Fae her age was a sore topic, and he knew it, saw the way it affected her, "and I guess Ianthe and Zinnia count too for staying so long to watch over Tamlin and I, but only because they are my family. I _have_ to be friends with them."

"Blood doesn't have to be your family." He said, and Kianna had never heard of such a thing. "Family can be the people that you chose. The people that truly care for you."

Now that sounded too good to be true, but then again it sounded just right coming from him. If anyone could see it done, it was Azriel.

"I agree," she met his cool hazel gaze. "I think that too." The right to choose a family that cared about you instead of one that was forced upon you since birth sounded right to her.

Sure, Kianna cared about Tamlin, but she cared about Willow even more, the memory of her so strong that it haunted her dreams, and even a little bit of herself cared about Begonia, but most especially the person sitting beside her that had showered her with possibilities and dreams. Azriel was not like the rest.

"Will you be my family Azriel?"

That made Azriel pale in comparison to what she was used to. "I…" Kianna's face fell, _of course that was pushing him too hard, she should know better by now_. "It isn't that I don't want to be your family Kianna." She dared to believe his words, "it's just, I might not be able to be here if you needed me, and family should be able to be there for you no matter what. I don't want to disappoint you."

"Why can't you be here for me? Because of your High Lord? Does he not let you?" She saw him prickle under her persecuting words and something told her that was one of the main reasons why they he couldn't keep that promise.

"Rhys knows what can happen Kianna. Us meeting in secret like this," he stressed, "is a dangerous thing." There was that name again, Rhys, _High Lord_ _Rhysand,_ how she hated that murderers name, and how reverently Azriel had to say it to the point that it nauseated her sense.

"I know."

He repeated. "I know you don't like him."

 _"I don't."_ Kianna stressed.

"But he is right." Azriel pointed out. "I am not making it seem like this is dangerous, but it is for you when you can't protect yourself. People wouldn't understand why I would care about you, what I hoped to get out of this, and the ties I share with Rhys can be a threat to your family. Us meeting is going against your brother wishes, against the memory of what my High Lord did to your family. To others I'm just," it looked like was debating telling her, and then put it out there as if it could put oceans between them. "A spy."

 _"A spy?"_ Kianna had never heard the word before.

"I gather information for my High Lord." _He meant Rhys, who else could he mean_ , Kianna thought to herself. "I am his eyes, his ears, and I report back what I find." Was his easy explanation, and so why did it have seemed to have a cold revelation to it? _Perhaps because he reports back to the murderer of your family_ , a small voice answered. _He reports everything, and nothing is a secret to him. He can't be trusted, he's Night Court, a tricky beast of shadow and lies. Even his shadows have shadows. Beware him Kianna._

"Do you tell him about us?" She dared to ask, expecting him to refute it. "Do you tell him everything I tell you?"

He didn't deny it. "Of course. I must tell him, it's the only way he allows me to see you." _Allow?_ That made her sick. She hated someone having power over Azriel like that.

She pointed out. "You still come to see me. No matter what he _allows_ you to do, you still tell me things too."

"I do," his words carried the same heaviness.

"Good," she saw his face fall again. His tale not yet finished, "what is it Azriel? What else bothers you?"

"I am Lesser Fae."

She chuckled and saw that Azriel was in fact being serious.

 _"Oh, so?"_ She dared in a childish bravado, and Kianna chuckled at the surprise on his face. "I am rather fond of Lesser Fae, they are nice to me, they make wonderful music, and play all sorts of games with me," more importantly, "you are nicest person I know Azriel, if being a Lesser Fae bothered me I would have told you already."

"You don't know me Kianna, not well enough to make that judgment call."

"I know enough." Kianna shook her own head when he refused her passionate declaration, she touched his rough cheek, and talking from the heart with only the most innocent of intentions. "I don't see why we all can't get along, High, Lesser, human," she dared further, for once happy that no one was shushing or disagreeing with her, just Azriel, and him looking at her as if she was going to get herself hurt again. She let his sadness be her fuel, "don't you think we could be like that? We shouldn't care about who is higher or lower, we should _just be us_?"

"Just be us." He said the words so quietly she had to lean closer to him and lean her head against his wrinkle worried temple. She could feel his sadness melt away when something warmer came alive where their temples touched. There was a connection there.

"Just us Azriel. Can't you feel it? We are the best of friends. Our High Lords cannot take this away from us." It felt so sweet, it felt so strong, and it made her believe that here was somewhere she belonged. Not sitting beside Begonia, being a good little faeling, not following and rushing after Tamlin's mighty steps to do his High Lord duties, and not staring out at the rolling green hills where they had buried her mother. Not there. Not anywhere. Just here. Here with Azriel.

"Yes Kianna, we are friends," he said it as if he found the answer he had been looking for, as if he was putting himself to sleep, and not worried about what awaited them at dawn.

"Then let this just be about us." Kianna sighed happily when he did too, resting against his side, his arms going around her skinny waist, his face pressed into her hair, as she rested her hand on his arm, and feeling the purring content grow when she did.

Perhaps Azriel could continue look after her like Willow had, love her like her Mother always did, and make time to still be the brother she had always wanted.

In the peaceful moment beside Azriel, she was letting his presence soothing and calm her. She could describe it as a sleepy breath after a long day at work, the pat of a hand from someone that loved you more than words itself, and she hoped that feeling was strong enough to reach him when he returned to his home.

* * *

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

* * *

After Azriel had flown back home to the Nigh Court, giving her enough time to steal back into her room, change back into her nightgown, pretending to sleep beside a slumbering Begonia, Kianna decided it high time to start today a bit differently.

It was time to make _the change_ her Mother had spoken to her about in child's dream in the rose garden.

 _People will ask things of you, expect you to speak and act as I did. It is your burden to bear now, but more importantly it is your path to choose._

Kianna was ready to try to find her path in this new world, and she would be willing to learn like Azriel had told her to do.

In a rather cool day at the Spring Court, with constant chatter of building The Wall, the lands without a human in sight, and her brother as High Lord over it all, she found herself time and time again under Aunt Maris thumb. Now, she was lumped with a wide-eyed Begonia that shied away from the other faelings their age.

From the corner of her eye, Kianna could see a pair of Fae young females sitting on the stone hedge on the border of the Manor's grounds, farmer's hats covered their bun-up hair and their fingers were caked in dirt. Workers. Farmer Fae females. They looked happy despite the sweat of a day's hard work on their face and legs, chatting with one another like sisters, and pointing, smirking, and chuckling at the faeling males their age and older, practicing for the sacred sentinels position. Not a care to wearing fancy dresses or appearing aloof to the rather bullish and handsome Fae males like Aunt Maris had instructed them to be.

Kianna looked back at her cousin Begonia, sitting painfully beside her.

Her blonde head was bent, and her eyes only for her sewing needle, hardly a word escaped her that wasn't meek or rather more than a whisper. Her shy insecurity made it near impossible for a rather upset Kianna to socialize with anyone outside of her bossy older sisters, and their elite Vallahan posse.

"Why is she still here?"

 _"Who?"_

"The Hybern whore," Ianthe said crudely. "I thought father already spoke to Tamlin. I thought she knew she wasn't welcome here, especially with the High Lords of Prythian arriving in a month's time," the Vallahan harpy growled in her plush seat under the Weeping Willow beside the training grounds, and Zinnia fanning herself as her new suitor from Vallahan raised an eyebrow at the red-head seductress pawing at her High Lord brother.

Tamlin was unaware of their criticism, too busy doing his duty and overseeing the Captain Greenseer's training of the sentinels.

"Perhaps our cousin Tamlin has taken a fancy to her," Zinnia smiled brightly to her suitor. The one that Aunt Maris had taught her the past week and had said it made her look prettier. "Who are we to get in the way of love? Right Vox?"

"Of course, dear." He gave her a brief smile for pleasantries sake.

"Come on Zinnia," the harpy Ianthe cut her down. "If you think _that_ is love dear sister," she said snidely. "Then Vox here has much to teach you. Please Vox, don't think so small of my sister. It's not her fault that she still has her head wrapped around romance novels," if looks could kill Ianthe would be dead twice. By her red-faced sister and Mother. Her cousin did not seem to catch on. "You'll learn soon that our Zinnia can't help it, she's terrible with matters of the heart, even she knows it."

"I think," Zinnia clasped her sewing needle with a demon eye at Ianthe.

Her elder only smiled back.

"I think...I am tired." Zinnia gave up, giving a false smile to her suitor. "I would like to rest indoors, we can take a break from _this heat_ ," was Zinnia's veiled threat to Ianthe, and her rather amused Vallahan suitor led her back to the Manor like the genteel nobleman Lord's sons were raised to be. Kianna soon learned the people of Vallahan were the farthest thing from the fierce and ferocious beast her brother, whom now was yelling insults at the sentinels to "pick up the pace".

At least Amarantha seemed to be enjoying herself, watching Tamlin with a predatory gaze. She even turned back to see Zinnia and her suitor stalk off, and Kianna could swear that she winked at her when their eyes met. Perhaps she had heard everything, wouldn't surprise her, she had not become a General of Hybern because of her looks and coy nature.

"You shouldn't have said that Ianthe, shame on you." Aunt Maris whispered fiercely, and had taken Zinnia's fan, using it on herself, and berating her eldest daughter like there was no tomorrow. "Now what will Lord Vox think of us now."

"That we have some intelligence Mother."

Aunt Maris disagreed, hissing. "You must know how hard it was for your father to broker this arrangement for Zinnia. Are you really that jealous of her? Are you jealous that she is marrying first? Is this how you get back at her?"

 _"Jealous?"_ Kianna and Begonia watched as Ianthe puffed her feathers. "What do I have to be jealous of? If I play my cards right, I will be a High Priestess of the Spring Court. As for marriage, I have my eyes set on a far greater triumph than some Vallahan second born son," her eyes marked the only prize she made eyes for.

 _Tamlin._

Kianna felt her gut coil at the thought of someone marking her brother like that, like some rare piece of meat, and yet… that was exactly what Amarantha was doing as well. The way her roaming hand massaged his shoulder, pointing out his sentinels, but only getting closer to do it. The Hybern seductress was only doing what many females of her Court had done to her brothers, and now it would be Tamlin's turn.

Begonia reached out and took her hand, bringing it into her lap, and petting her like she was some baby kitten. Even if Begonia was shy, at least she best of her sisters.

"I would not count your eggs before they hatch Ianthe," her mother persisted. "You can be the ruin of us if you aren't careful."

"When did being careful get anyone anywhere?" Ianthe rebuked, a fire in her eyes.

Kianna had to chew on her tongue before it wagged her stupid cousin.

She almost chewed it off when Amarantha had sneaked up on them, a sly fox smile working its way across her face as she saw the mood the Tamlin's family of females were in, and she slinked on in over as if she had been listening in on the argument between sisters and Mother.

"Don't you want to join your sister Ianthe?" She knew exactly where to hit the younger Vallahan female. "Go inside and find out if any of the Vallahan roosters find a liking to you."

Ianthe looked like she swallowed a lemon. "I think not."

"So, you pissed off your sister, and are too afraid to confront her," she found it funny for some reason. "I believe you might have made an enemy of Zinnia, not sure if that will win you any friends in Vallahan," Amarantha said smartly, resting her hands on her enviously round hips. "I must warn you, there is nothing like making your family an enemy. Talk about complicated family reunions."

"Did Hybern teach you that? To make family into the enemy?" Ianthe was the one to smirk now. "I don't need to learn any lesson that comes out of _Hybern_."

"Actually, Tamlin's father was the one that taught me that," she winked at Kianna. "Something tells me I knew him better than all of you combined. It must be so hard, coming to the Spring Court, and even after ten years, you all are still strangers here." Amarantha shrugged. "It makes it so awkward for us when you refuse to leave. It surely makes Tamlin feel so, but he wouldn't say, must have got that spineless humility from your side of the family."

"That's enough." Said the Vallahan Matriarch, this cold glint in her eye as she looked at the Hybern General. "We should all go inside, come girls, I can see we are no longer welcome here." Aunt Maris stood to bow to Amarantha bidding her leave, and Ianthe was already heading back to the Manor, not even having the decency to wait for them.

"Are you coming Kianna?" Begonia asked when she saw that Kianna made no move to leave.

"I want to watch the sentinels spar." Kianna would not leave Tamlin, not after hearing and seeing the _type_ of females that were after him.

"Come Kianna, you aren't needed here. Come back inside, we will put you to do something useful-" Aunt Maris argued tiredly. Already spent with Ianthe, and not in the mood to deal with a high-spirited girl like her niece.

Kianna was ticked off my Amarantha and Ianthe's words, and for good reason. Before she was anyone's blood, she was Leesa's daughter, _her mother's daughter_ , and she would be damned by the High Lord himself if she wasn't here for her older brother in any way she could be.

" _Kianna?_ " Amarantha addressed her for the first time. Noticing her iron will not to follow Aunt Maris, or meet anyone of their eyes, "you are interested in fighting."

"I am interested, _in what my brother is interested in_." Kianna put it strongly. Let her take it as she would.

"Well." She mused with that same face she made when she was looking at Tamlin. "Why don't I teach you a few fighting stances, be a participant rather than the spectator? What do you say to that?"

Kianna grin broke to epic proportions, not only would she get to stay with her brother, perhaps one day she could join him. Show him that she was a worthy enough female to stand by his side, fight for his side, and perhaps even win for him. Not noticing that Begonia and Aunt Maris paled at the request made to her.

"Yes, General Amarantha." Kianna conceded. "I think I shall."

* * *

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

* * *

 **(10 years later). 20 ATW  
**

Apprenticing under Amarantha was no easy feat, especially when Tamlin only encouraged it.

 _"Don't make it easy on her Amarantha." Was his only suggestion. "She takes offense to it, don't you little Kia." He rubbed her head, even if it was only two inches away from his. She pushed it off before anyone could see his babying._

 _"As she should. I would take the same offense if any of my mentors dared to belittle me in such a way." Amarantha said, then her voice changed to an ugly shrill, "even if she is too cute to lay a finger on, I just want to eat her up half the time," she tried to play with Kianna's hair._

 _"Stop it!" Kianna barked back. "I am a grown female!"_

 _"We shall see," Amarantha said with hunger._

As Kianna rolled her palm over her sweating forehead she heard a painful yelp from the fight.

"Shit, you bitch," Yuma held her sliced arm to her chest, looking at it with gnarled teeth. This made her full lips, high cheekbones and widow's peak pinch like a dried palm date. "I told you to stop making that move Amarantha, _you fucken cheat_."

The spear that had cut her was tossed in the air and catapulted at the Weeping Willow yards away. The owner of the spear was far more pissed, her full rounded eyes burned, and her blood red hair frizzed from the exertion. "Cry like a smacked whore if you want," Amarantha spit on the ground, for once tired with the competition the lone female sentinel of Tamlin's guard had to give her. "Your enemy will not even give you the chance to do that."

She wasn't the only one upset, the heat was getting to everyone. Especially to Tamlin's rather confident little sister.

"Wait!" Kianna pointed out to her fellow sparing partner Yuma. "Hey Stupid!" Was what she usually called her, "you are getting all the blood on your, go clean it off before you tear the fabric again, I am not giving you a new one."

"Stingy bitch." Yuma fired back at Kianna.

"Sweaty ass donkey face."

"Lady Lard Ass." Kianna hated that one.

"Dung-licking commoner!"

"Fuck you bitch," the injured but graceful blades-woman Yuma stalked off in anger to change, and Kianna smirked victorious, she got her with that one.

Amarantha picked up some of Yuma's daggers, displeased with their slurring, only because it wasted time from them actually doing something productive. She pointed it at the watching little Lady, "You done with your break, or am I going to _whip your ass_ for sitting down and watching again?"

"Sure," she shrugged, but a few hours later with a gash across her forehead and a burn on her leg she regretted saying so.

Her body was hurting from the rigid work out that Amarantha had made her do every time she failed. She would have to push her body off the ground fifty times and then pull her chest to her legs another fifty times, _every time she failed_ , and that was too many times to count. Her tummy, arms, and upper thighs were aching and throbbing from the gushing blood that pumped painfully to Amarantha's ruthless orders, "Wipe it off, and get up." Her dueling Master challenged her, and Kianna stood up and did so.

After a deadly dance of spear vs. twin blades, she took too many steps back, and that was her downfall.

Kianna hand came back with a dark red liquid and she felt her body go squeamish as she made herself stare at the glare of the sun shining down on the sandy training grounds rather than think of her wounds. She was more afraid of failing the retired Hybern General; whom she herself refused to return home until her protegee reeked of _Hybern ferocity_ , rather than dying from blood loss of her lessons. If her teachings proved time and time again, death was not the worst thing that could happen to a warrior Fae female. Failure was.

For staring too long at the blood, Kianna ended up sprawled on her front with a sweep of the spear against her calves, her chin slamming against the ground, the dust getting into her moaning mouth, and she knew the fall would leave a nasty bruise.

"Ouch!" Yuma saw this when she returned, freshly bandaged arm, and ready for more of this abuse. "I don't think she is ready for another one Amarantha. Take my words. Females of this Court are made soft." Kianna growled at the mention of her weakness. "And for your own safety, you should take it easy on my High Lord's baby sister."

"Shut your cunt mouth commoner. Stop treating her like a infant, or she will die like one," said the foul-mouthed and temperamental elder and battle-hardened Fae female. Amarantha was more pissed than she had ever seen her, growling at Kianna's pathetic attempts to make a stand against her, failing to even do that.

"Who is in charge here, you Yuma? No. So shut the hell up so I can do my job."

"Don't talk to her like that,"Kianna spoke up for the first time. Meeting Amarantha's upset features head-on, "it isn't her fault its mine. So stop it."

"Stop it, _I'll show you stop it_!" Amarantha kicked the lost blades away from a crawling Kianna.

"Hey!"

"Your enemy will not make it that easy."

"You are not my enemy," Kianna reiterated spitting out the dust her feet had kicked up just so she could choke on it.

"Right now I am." Amarantha pointed her spear at a rising Kianna, her legs wobbly like a fawn learning to stand for the first time."Come at me again little she-beast, this time do it better, and do it stronger, perhaps this time use this instead of those wimpy blades."

She threw one of Yuma's small broad sword at the losing Kianna, grimacing when the younger spit up blood with the dust, but still rose for the battle nevertheless. Everyone could see she had been a monkey's ass with Yuma's daggers, but the blade after a few sparring thrusts was not such a bad fit.

Kianna would have calloused and ugly red blisters by the end of the night, but at least she would be able to stick with a few seconds against Amarantha.

When they were breaking their fast, she was scolded by her _least_ favorite cousin. Like Yuma taught her, there were some battles you could chose not to fight. Ianthe was one of those.

"Your stupid," Ianthe deigned to notice her bruises of the day. Begonia and Zinnia silent, but listening for the fallout this time, "no one told you to fight. Not all of us can be Amaranthas. When will you learn that?"

"When you learn," she bit right back, upset for giving into her words so easily. "That the only Vallahan female capable of snagging a High Lord was my mother," her voice chilled the dining room air, especially when Ianthe was not the only one to hear it. "And it will remain so as long as I am breathing." She had heard Amarantha say that once, and now the words felt hollow on her tongue, cruel words of a crueler female, and she did not yet know the gravity of such words truly meant, especially on a furious pale-faced Ianthe.

"You are much changed Kianna." Her Uncle Vanir piped up from his place at head of the table, taking Tamlin's spot since he was not here to fill it in himself. "I would hate to have to inform Tamlin that his Hybern General has not only managed to outstay her welcome but has also managed to seduce the mind of his more than willing little sister."

 _Perhaps you are the one that has outstayed your welcome._ Kianna would have retorted with, but knew that she had already dug herself a big enough hole to bury herself in. She told Amarantha this when they were dueling again.

"And what did you tell him?" She wanted to know.

"I didn't tell him anything," Kianna said truthfully. "I didn't want him to think I would come to you and tell you what happened. So I kept it to myself until I could tell you."

"Excellent." One of Amarantha's dark red eyebrows grew into her hairline, "you make a fine spy Kianna, has anyone ever told you that?"

"I have learned from the best," she thought of his smart grey eyes, caught off guard blushing cheeks, and lovely rounded ears. _What would Azriel think of her brushing elbows with Hybern and Vallahan at the same time?_ He had said once that his Court was not on speaking terms with them, especially its King and a female that had died a long time ago, named _Clythie_ or _Clythia_ or something like that.

She already knew what Tamlin thought of her strong words with Ianthe.

When he returned, he was barraged by both sides. Upset that they could get at each other's throats in two weeks time. He raked his strong knuckles against the dining room table when Amarantha and Kianna dined with him alone when he returned from his tour of the Spring Court, as was custom of the new High Lord to do at least once at the beginning of his reign, but had not helped with this family issue.

"I will take care of Vanir." Tamlin pointed a fork at both of their smug faces, thinking that they won this time, "you _both,"_ his distrusting eyes marked both of them. "Both of you just stop antagonizing my guests. If you leave them be, I can at least vouch on my part that if they so bother you both again with Kianna's training, then they will have me to contend with."

"Thank you Tamlin, my hero," Amarantha purred at him, and Kianna's brother took her hand briefly, nodding to her, before taking off once again, and being swallowed by his duties once again.

It was not until a week after that she came across Amarantha's room and did not find her in it.

"Amarantha?" Kianna felt like something was off.

"Amarantha where are you?" She wasn't here.

The draws and grand closet of her guest room was empty of her dresses, training gear, and rather flamboyant weapons of War. Everything of hers was stripped from the room, and that was not all she found upsetting in the room. A letter sat on her writing desk, one marked Tamlin, and the other Little Lady.

 _Beloved Little Lady,_

 _I will be long gone by the time you read this. Our time together was fun. Especially the times that I kicked your ass. Don't stop your training, and when the time is right, come and visit me why don't you. It gets lonely in Hybern, and I could always use you as a punching bag._

 _Ardently yours,_

 _Amarantha_

Kianna could feel the upset tears coming down her face as she walked to her brother's room and handed him his letter with wet and red eyes.

 _"_ _What is it?"_

"You drove her away," she remarked snidely, pushing past him, and shoving Amarantha's farewell letter in his larger than normal chest. "I hope your happy Tamlin, I will never get a teacher like her. Never."

"It was for your protection Kianna," he remarked before she left his room in one of her feral moods."I did it for your own good."

"You were intimidated by her, that is why you couldn't stand her teaching me something you couldn't."

"She was torturing Lesser Fae."

She could feel her body freeze as he continued in his explanation of sending her away from the Spring Court, not knowing that Amarantha, the female she had come to admire so was capable of such a thing.

"Vanir brought to my attention the wicked things she had done in my absence." Kianna could only imagine after the stories the General had told her about War and those that were disciplined for failure and insubordination. "Things that no member of my Court should be allowed to do. I had no choice but to _send_ her away."

"She was my friend Tamlin," Kianna voice was no longer questioning, upset, confused, mostly upset that he had not made that connection that she had once needed her, still needed to her hear story, still needed her if she was ever to become the Lady Warrior Amarantha had once called her. "She saw the potential in me, she wanted to help me, and you knew that. You knew that sending her away would never help me in becoming stronger, you promised me that night that you would teach me everything you know, and that you would do better than Father, better than Mother, that I would be strong enough-"

Her mother's sewn neck flashed before her eyes, "how will I protect us?"

"You don't have to carry that burden Kianna. That is what I am here for. We are strong enough Kia, believe that," Tamlin brushed a comforting ksis over her temple. Seeing how much this upset her. "But believe me, she wanted to use you. You don't see it now, but our father even warned us about Hybern, the only people we can trust is each other," he held her shoulders, "this is all we need right now Kianna. Hybern is amongst the highest of traitors that can turn on us. They just lost a war, _The War_ , and Amarantha for her deeds and mischief, is not even welcome before her own King for her failures, and I will not allow her to taint your mind into believing things that are too good to be true, to change you into something you are not."

"So it's just going to us then. _Only us_ , all alone in this Manor." She stressed, "we're going to be alone for a long time Tamlin if we only trust ourselves. Perhaps that is what you want, for us to drive each other insane over it. To start seeing enemies everywhere, until we start believing that we are each other's enemies too..."

"Kianna, don't say it like that-"

"I refuse to push away my friends, only because you are paranoid Tamlin." That was putting it lightly. She was sure he thought the worse of everyone, possibly even her too. "Do not take Yuma away from me too. At least allow me to train with her. Allow me to still go into Town and visit…"

"Visit with who?" His bright green eyes flared at the assumption he was making.

Kianna throat bobbed, but she stood her guard. Refusing to ever be afraid of the beast the Court had feared for years. "You don't think I would forget that we had a sister?" She started there, intent in her certainty. "That I would give her up so easily with the lie you made of her life?"

"We don't have a sister." He was being ridiculous.

"Yes we do." She gave her brother a piece of their sister. "She is so beautiful Tamlin. Just like Mother," he turned away at the raw pain in her eyes, instead choosing to stare out his balcony, and not brave or ready enough to face the truth. "Every day she grows so beautiful, and she has a good heart, because she cares after her adopted sister and mother so much. She loves with all her heart." She was invested in making him think so. "You have to see her, she looks just like Mother if you don't stare at her directly, but she has a bit of your shyness too, it's adorable when you get her to talk about-"

"Stop it."

"Tamlin, you can't run from this-"

" _Please stop_."

Kianna winced at the fragility in his voice.

He was not finished. "We will not speak of _her_. Not here. That is an order Kianna, I will not have you changing something that will only put everyone at risk."

" _Not here?_ " She echoed, knowing. Not in the Manor where their parents and brothers ghost could hear, and where those they couldn't _trust_ could hear. So much paranoia, so many enemies to remember, their father would have been so proud.

Kianna's shoulders slumped in his refusal to answer. "So she is a _Her_ now?"

"It's for the best Kianna. For her safety, for yours."

She shook her head at how sad person her brother and protector had become, "Oh Tamlin, her name is Cammy, she likes going by Cammy," she corrected him, whom seemed to be at lost for words at her revival of the fact that Kianna with power unknown to them, had resurrected an already dead faeling babe. Their sister, that was more alive than ever.

"When the time comes," Kianna handled the painful lump in her throat, swallowing her own guilt. "When you find it in your heart to change, or when it finally think it is safe enough. I want you to tell her the truth of what happened that night. If you don't," she dared and promised, "I will."

* * *

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

* * *

The Town was exactly that, a sleepy little town, just barely a mile north of the Manor and it's grounds.

She knocked on the door of one of the humble cottages, a pen of goats and chickens clucked and neighed at her as she continued to knock in exasperation for someone too answer her, and deliver her from the humbled bows and nosy stares for her business amongst the common Fae and faire folk alike.

"May the evergreen pastures be your way Lady Kianna," said some old Fae woman, with sage-like eyes, wrinkled hands, and silver braided hair, pulling the hand of her grandchild, only ten summers old with bright golden hair and wide green eyes. Perhaps that was the same innocence she once had before the murder of her parents, perhaps, and yet she knew there was always the _dark beast_ of her Father in her, now tempered by the _white light_.

"May the green pastures guide yours as well," Kianna bowed her head, and then someone crept up behind her, putting their hand over her eyes, and hiding the day from her.

 _"Guess who?"_

Kianna giggled at her little sister's playful voice, and pulling her hands away to see her soft and painfully pretty hands.

"Very funny Cammy, you're late," she remarked sullenly. "I told you not to keep me waiting."

"I know." Kianna turned and smiled warmly at the bright golden eyes of her sister. Camellia in flesh and blood was hard to look on straight on, because she was the burning light intensified. A living reminder of that night that remained a frustrating mystery to Tamlin, but a delightful miracle of life to Kianna.

Whatever that power had come from, the power of it's light, _it's burning presence_ , it had granted her sister a chance at life, and her thanks.

"What?" Her sister shrugged, golden in every sense, and so obvious that she didn't belong here amongst those that only judged and thought her some bastard daughter left to a Fae peasant mother. It hurt to keep it from her, and it hurt to imagine what her life would have been if the Night Court and her brother had not stolen her birthright. "Why are you looking at me like that Kia? Do I have something on my face?"

"Oh it's nothing," Kianna brushed it off before her sister could look too much into. "Come my golden flower, get Cassia, and we will be off. I want to go to the Lake for a swim. How does that sound?" Now she sounded like their mother. Perhaps that the intended consequence of being the elder to her younger sister, wanting to coddle and harvest her time because to name her as sister was forbidden by their high-strung High Lord brother.

"Yes, come." Camellia agreed, with the youth of her twenty years so evident in her charismatic smile, one that she could not mimic to even the slightest with the horrors she had scene. "Let us enjoy this _blessed day_ ," she echoed more joyfully.

They walked in the direction of the Lake.

* * *

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

* * *

Unknown to them, a haggard and hunchback Fae female watched on, wearing only a poorly made wool clothes, and a gnarled cane as she watched them leave the boundaries of the gentle bustle of the Town.

A equally aged Fae man beside her grunted at the sight of them, puffing out a dragon from his pipe, "seems odd that Tamlin's sister comes here to visit her. Doesn't make sense when she has plenty of females to keep her company."

"Not so odd." The woman commented. "What is odd is that beings of the wood between the worlds have entered our own," the name sent a shiver of magic through the air. A shiver that leaked into the man, knowing that this conversation was not so innocent.

"What is it Wanderer?" He asked of the ancient representative of the Old Order. "Is this going to lead us into another War with the primordials?"

"They still sleep." She put it lightly, "but the time of their return is uncertain now. Those that have not walked this earth for a millennia have entered from the pools of the Wood, from places that I do not know where."

"Hm." He hummed. "If I was a young Fae male, I would think you are making this up," he remarked off-hand. "But I trust in your knowledge Wanderer, I remember the old days of Kings, darker beasts prowling these woods," his eyes marked the forest with a well-seasoned hunter's gaze, "and when the primordials walked amongst us. Odds days, made for odder people."

"What is odd," the Wanderer added, "is that the "otherworld" being's magical signature led me back so close to the Manor, that it led me to the heart of the High Lord," her gnarled finger pointed at the leaving Fae females, "to them."

He thought so too, the smoke pluming from his mouth."Odd Wanderer," he waved the rest of the grey smoke before it got in the Wanderer's rather wrinkled face for a Fae. "Very odd for females so young like these to become imbalanced to the worldly things around them."

"Young they are," she huffed, stamping her cane into the mud ground. "Which begs the question what is their role in all this?" Her mouth inverted into an ugly frown, and her squinting foggy eyes kept judging the daughters of Tagnar the Terrible in that way that the ancient ones looked at the young innocent and stupid. "Have you heard rumors of any changes with Tagnar's daughter and the other?"

"I honestly don't know." The aged Fae was no help to her. "Perhaps the Mother."

"The Great Mother." The Wanderer said with little esteem. "Always hearing our prayers, but forgetting to answer them."

"Some might say that."

"All I see is kittens without claws, just asking to be fed to the wolves." She pointed out, painfully aware of how unprepared the young of this world were to the old dangers. "Now this is just irresponsible of their guardian. Disappointing too if I may be so blunt, _and I do dare_ ," she remarked in a crackling voice, that of bark breaking off a tree, shaking her head filled with leaves and the sweat of a long journey made, and turning her heavy head to the culprit over the hills yonder.

"I wish you find your answers Wanderer. So we may move forward," he declared. "That we continue in this peace without humans and without Hybern breathing down our neck, good day and green pastures be your way," he took his leave of her. "Send a raven if they cause you trouble Wanderer."

"Yes, trouble does seem to find me," she gave him that. Watching the age-old sentinel Fae go in his unhurried steps.

She spoke to the air, "A tentative peace we may wish for, but we shall see." She hissed to only the wind that carried her words. "He's to blame in all this. Yes, I know he is to blame."

The ancient Fae female waddled her own way to the Manor in need of speaking to the one they called Tamlin, and what he thought of letting such precious females creatures so readily available to the celestial monsters that lurked in his Court from other worlds, and perhaps, convince him of giving him the apprentice worthy of taking her place and becoming _The_ _Wanderer_ , and to help her in putting those _celestials_ back to their world.

"Great Wanderer," she prayed to the one that had taught her the importance of diligence and vigilance. "Watch the land beneath my feet and lead them to the purpose I must take." She rued that this time had come to pass in her lifetime, "guide me in surest way to save my family and people."

* * *

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